LECTURES 



UPON 



THE HISTORY 



OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
JESUS CHRIST. 



REV. HENRY BLUNT, A.M. 

RECTOR OP UPPER CHELSEA ; LATE FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, 

CAMBRIDGE j AND CHAPLAIN TO HIS GRACE, THE 

DUKE OF RICHMOND. 



Secontr itmetfcan ISlrrtton. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
HERMAN HOOKER, 

NORTHWEST CORNER OP CHESTNUT AN" FIFTH STREETS. 

1840, 






C. Sherman >;i:% Printers, 
19 St. James Street. 









JUL l«1<♦1!^ 



PREFACE. 



In undertaking the present history, the author felt more 
anxiety, and in committing it to the press he still feels more 
hesitation, than on any former occasion. The narrative of 
the life of our divine Lord and Master forms the sum and 
substance of the Gospels. To comment upon this, in a 
manner at all equal to its acquirements, is far beyond the 
author's powers ; to comment upon it plainly, and scriptu- 
rally, and usefully, is all at which he aims; but for this, 
much labour, and prayer, and time are needed. 

If every incident in such a life is to be noticed — and where 
is the Christian who would willingly part with a single line in 
the portraiture of his divine Master ? — years must pass away 
before its conclusion. In ordinary times, and the present 
are not ordinary times, many are the vicissitudes which 
would occur during the period that such a history, if we 
are permitted to conclude it, needs must occupy. Many 
a youthful reader, now entering upon life, perhaps too full 
of his approaching prospects to give much heed at present 
to instructions such as these, will, ere they close, be sobered 
by the stern realities of life, and softened by the influences 
of God's good Spirit, to an attention to " the things belong- 
ing to his peace." While many an aged Christian, who 
now delights in the narration of all that " the Beloved" of 
his «oul said, and did, and suffered while on earth, will, per- 



[y , . PREFACE. 

! " ■ ' ' ^ '^-'^■ 

haps, before|this simply Uly^ration t)P H is ioncluded, have 
ceased from human tedlih^rjrtmd'tliOT imDerfect ministra- 
tions ; will have exchanged the written for the living Word ; 
will be dwelling " in the light which no man can approach 
unto," and hearing these passages of the mortal life of his 
Redeemer, perhaps from the lips of those who witnessed 
them, but certainly in the . immediate presence of him, 
" whom not having seen, ye love." 

To the sincere Christian, reflections such as these will be 
productive of anxiety ; it is enough that no holier subject can 
occupy him here below ; no higher subject even in eternity, 
than to dwell upon the precious words, the mighty deeds, the 
almighty love of the infinite, the adorable Redeemer, the 
co-equal, co-eternal Son of the living God. 

May the prayers of the reader so accompany the oflTor ts of 
the author, and tfee grace of God so " prevent and follow" 
both, that he may not disgrace the matchless theme, but be 
enabled to speak of the divine Saviour as one who, although 
he has never learnt where the favoured son of Zebedee de- 
lighted to lay his head, has not been denied " the crumbs 
which Jail from the Master's table." 

Upper Chelsea, 

January, 1834, 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION I. 

LECTURE I. 

Matthew i. 18. 
" Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wiseJ*^ 

The " mystery of Christ's holy incarnation." The birth of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. The birth of the Saviour announced to the 
shepherds. The shepherds' faith and the Shepherd's bless* 
ing 15 

LECTURE IL 

Luke ii. 21. 

" When eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the 
child f his name was called Jesus^ lohich was so named of the angel 
before he was conceived in the womb:^* 

The circumcision of Jesus. Infant baptism. " Thou shalt call his 
name Jesus." The presentation in the temple. Address to Chris* 
tian parents. Simeon and Anna 29 

A* 



vi' CONTENTS. 

LECTURE III. 
Luke ii. 51. 

" And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was 
subject unto them^ 

The visit of the Magi. The flight into Egypt. The return. Christ 
in the temple in the midst of the Doctors. Was subject to his 
parents. Parental discipline. . , , . . 42 



LECTURE IV. 
Matthew iv. 3. 

** And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou he the Son of 
God, command that these stones be made bread.^^ 

The baptism of our Lord. The first temptation. . . 56 



LECTURE V. 

Matthew iv. 8, 9. 

" Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high moun- 
tain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory 
of them ; and saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if 
thou wilt fall down and worship me." 

The second temptation. Faith and presumption. Encouragement. 
The third temptation. " All these things will I give thee." 71 



CONTENTS. Vii 

LECTURE VI. 

John i. 49. 

" Nathanael ansicered and saiih unto him, Rahbi, thou art the Son 
of God ; thou art the King of IsraeV* 

„ John the Baptist. His first testimony to Jesus. Calling of Andrew. 

f Of Simon Peter. The future, in mercy, hidden from our eyes. 

Calling of Philip. Interview with Nathanael. Prejudice. 84 

LECTURE VIL 

John ii. 1, 2. 

" And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee,''^ 

The marriage at Cana. First miracle. Address to married persons. 
The wife's obedience. The husband's responsibility. . 97 

SECTION II. 

LECTURE! 

John ii. 13-15. 

" And the Jews* passover was at hand ; and Jesus went up to 
Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, 
and doves, and the changers of money sitting ; and when he had 
made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the templet 

The first Passover after the commencement of our Lord's ministry. 
Jesus cleanses the temple. Zeal and discretion equally neces- 
sary in all reformation 115 



viii CONTENTS. 

LECTURE II. 
John iii. 1, 2. 

" There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler 
of the Jews ; the same came to Jesus by night,^^ 

The interview with Nicodemus. " Except a man be born again he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." No knew doctrine. The 
Gospel, a " savour of life unto life, or of death unto death," to 
all who hear it 126 



LECTURE IIL 



John iv. 10. 

" Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of 
God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest 
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water^ 

Persecution. Jesus "wearied with his journey." '*The gift of 
God." Conversion of the Samaritan woman. . . 139 



LECTURE IV. 



John iv. 50. 

" Jesus saith unto him. Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the 
man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he 
went his way.^^ 

A prophet is not honoured in his own country. Jesus heals the 
nobleman's son. Three striking examples of our Lord's treat- 
ment of the ignorant, the sinning, and the suffering. Invitation 
to these three classes 152 



CONTENTS. ix 

LECTURE V. 

Luke iv. 33, 34. 

" And in the synagogue there was a man^ which had a spirit of 
an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us 
alone : what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art 
thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art ; the Holy One 
of God:' 

Our Lord resides in Capernaum. Demoniacal possession. The un- 
clean spirit bears testimony to Jesus. Our Lord heals Simon's 
wife's mother of a great fever. Address to convalescents. 167 



LECTURE VL 

Mare ii. 5. 

K " When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, 
B Son, thy sins he forgiven thee,'' 

Jesus heals a leper. Heals the paralytic. Has power on earth to 
forgive sin 179 



LECTURE VIL 

Luke v. 27, 28. 

" And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, 
named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom; and he said unto 
him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him," 

The calling of St. Matthew. On conversion. Still a supernatural 
work — and a decisive work. . . . . . 193 



X CONTENTS. 

SECTION III. 

LECTURE I. 

John v. 8. 
" Jesus saith unto Mm, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk^ 

Jesus goes up to Jerusalem to attend the second Passover during 
his ministry. Pool of Bethesda. Jesus heals the impotent 
man .209 

LECTURE IL 

John v. 25. 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, 
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they 
that hear shall live,^^ 

Our Lord taken before the Sanhedrim. Accused of Sabbath 
breaking. Answers the charge. Accused of making himself 
equal with God. Acknowledges this great truth, and establishes 
it. Proclaims the general judgment 222 

LECTURE II L 

Luke vi. 12, 13. 

f 

" And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a 

mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God, And 
when it loas day, he called unto him his disciples : and of them he 
chose twelve, lohom also he named apostles,^^ 

Our Lord continues " all night in prayer to God." Chooses and 
ordains the twelve Apostles. The Christian's duty of praying 
for ministers. The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus entertained by 
Simon the Pharisee. A woman who was a sinner, anoints our 
Lord's feet. Forgiveness of sin produces love to the Saviour. 

236 



CONTENTS. xi 

LECTURE IV. 

Matthew xii. 31. 

" Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy 
shall be forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy 
^ Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men^ 

Our Lord cures the blind and dumb demoniac. Answers the charge 
of casting out devils through Beelzebub. " The sin against the 
Holy Ghost." Its nature and prevention. Jesus begins to speak 
in parables. The storm on the Lake of Gennesaret . . 250 

LECTURE V. 

Mark v. 25-28. 

" A certain woman, when she heard of Jesus, came in the press 
behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may but 
touch his clothes, I shall be whole.'''' 

Christ visits the Gadarenes, and is urged to depart. Jairus be- 
seeches our Lord to go and heal his daughter. The woman 
healed of an issue of blood. The Lord's " hidden ones." "Only 
believe." Jesus raises Jairus's daughter. . . . 263 

LECTURE VL 

John vi. 37. 

** All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me^ and him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out"*^ 

The third passover during our Lord's ministry. The people fol- 
low Christ, ** because they did eat of the loaves, and were filled.'* 
Jesus the true bread which came down from heaven. On feed- 
ing by faith upon the Son of God. " All that the Father giveth 
me shall come unto me." " No man can come to me except the 
Father w^hich hath sent me draw him." « . . 278 



xii CONTENTS. 

SECTION IV- "~ 

LECTUREI. 
Matthew xv. 28. 

" Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is 
thy faith ; he it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter 
was made whole from that very hour,^^ 

The third year of our Lord's ministry. Jesus answers the Pharisees 
who asked why the disciples ate with unwashen hands. Visits 
the confines of Tyre and Sid on. Heals the daughter of the Syro- 
phoenician woman. " Great is thy faith." Jesus feeds four thou- 
sand with seven loaves 297 

LECTURE I L 
John vii. 37. 

*' In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, 
saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink,'''* 

Jesus goes towards Dalmanutha. Thence to Bethsaida, and through 
the villages of Csesarea Philippi. Peter's confession. The trans- 
figuration. Jesus sends forth the seventy disciples. Goes up to 
Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Tabernacles. Preaches in the 
temple " about the middle of the feast." Preaches again on 
"the great day of the feast." 309 

LECTURE II L 

St. John xi. 43. 

" And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, LazO'^ 
rus, come for th,'*^ 

The visit of our Lord Jesus Christ at the house of Lazarus. The 



CONTENTS. xiii 

sickness of Lazarus. His death. His resurrection. Beautiful 
application of our Church of the words of our Lord, " I am the 
resurrection and the life." 323 



LECTURE IV. 

Matthew xix. 16. 

" And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what 
good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life ?" 

The young ruler's character. His inquiry. The reply of our 
Lord, and its effect. The striking analogy between this case 
and many in the present day. ...... 340 



LECTURE V. 

Luke xix. 9. 

" And Jesus said unto him. This day is salvation come to this 
house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham y 

The petition of Salome, James and John. " Ye know not what ye 
ask." Conversation of Zaccheus. . . . . . 357 



LECTURE VL 

Mark xiv. 8. 
" ^he hath done what she could,^^ 

Jesus in the house of Simon the leper. Mary's offering. Judas 
condemns Mary. Our Lord defends her. Are we doing what 
we can? Our Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem. La- 
mentation over the devoted city. 372 



xiv CONTENTS. 



EXPOSITORY LECTURES. 



LECTURE L 

John xvii. 24. 

" Father^ I will that they also, tohom thou hast given me, be with 
me where I am, that they may behold my glory. ^^ 

Object of these lectures. Our Lord Jesus Christ keeps the Pass- 
over for the last time. Prays for his disciples. That his hea- 
venly Father may keep them, sanctify them, glorify Ihem. Christ 
prays not for the world. Daily sanctification necessary to the 
believer, 393 



LECTURE IL 

John xviii. 8. 

" Jesus answered, 1 have told you that I am he ; if therefore ye 
seek me, let these go their loay.^^ 

Our Lord in the garden of Gelhseniane. His apprehension. 405 

LECTURE IIL 

John xviii. 19. 

** The high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his 

doctrine^' 

Our Lord Jesus Christ before Caiapbas. Again before Caiaphas 
and the assembled Sanhedrim. 412 



CONTENTS. XV 

LECTURE IV. 

John xviii. 38. 
" Pilate saith unto him, What is truth ?" 

Our Lord Jesus Christ before Pilate. Privately examined. Ju- 
dicially examined. " What is truth ]".... 419 

LECTURE V. 

John xix. 12. 

^^ And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him; but the 
Jeios cried out, saying. If thou let this man go, thou art not 
CcBsar^s friend." 

The character of Pilate. Lessons to be drawn from Pilate's con- 
duct. " Behold the man." .427 

LECTURE VL 

John xix. 17. 
" And he bearing his cross went forth," 

Our Lord Jesus Christ delivered to be crucified. " Bearing his 
cross." Crucified. Commends his mother to the care of the 
beloved apostle. "It is finished." 435 

LECTURE VIL 

John xix. 41, 42. 

" Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden: 
and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet 
laid, there laid they Jesus" 

The soldiers break the legs of the malefactors. " A bone of him 



xvi CONTENTS. 

shall not be broken." " One of the soldiers with a spear pierced 
his side." Sanctification and justification. Jesus in the sepul- 
chre . . . . 446 



LECTURE VIII. 

John xx. 13. 

" And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou ? She saith 
unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know 
not where they have laid him,^^ 

Visit of the women to the sepulchre. Appearance of our Lord to 
Mary Magdalene. The risen Saviour 454 



THE HISTORY 

OF 

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
JESUS CHRIST. 



SECTION I. 

FROM HIS BIRTH TO THE FIRST PASSOVER AFTER THE 
COMMENCEMENT OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. 



LECTURES. 



LECTURE I. 

St. Matthew i. part of the 18th verse. 

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise." 

In opening to you the subject of the Lectures for the 
ensuing season, as has been usual with me upon this day, 
I confess I never felt so much oppressed by the difficulty 
of the undertaking as at the present moment. My plan 
has heretofore been to bring before you for <' reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in righteousness," the lives 
of some of the eminent servants of the Most High, as 
recorded in holy Scripture, and to point out, according 
to the ability which God has given me, the striking fea- 
tures of their history, either for your imitation or avoid- 
ance. If we have felt, and I confess that I have often 
deeply felt, that there w^as a degree of presumption in 
one so ignorant and so imperfect taking upon him to 
comment with all freedom upon the language, and ac- 
tions, and tenor of life of these most holy men of old, 
how must this feeling be increased, w^hen we approach, 
for a similar purpose, not the servants, but the Master — 



16 LECTURE I. 

not those who, with their highest degrees of hoUness, 
were still but the poor, sinful followers of the great 
Jehovah, but the co-equal and co-eternal Son ! 

Often have I desired to minister to you upon this high 
and holy theme, and as often have shrunk from it dis- 
mayed at the arduous task, and fearful of laying an 
unhallowed hand upon this greatest mystery of godli- 
ness, the true Ark of the Covenant. That I now address 
myself to it with the greatest diffidence and distrust of 
my own powers to do justice to it, it is unnecessary for 
me to add ; and but for one important object, I would 
not hazard the imputation of egotism, by alluding thus 
to my personal feelings ; but that object constrains me : 
I need not name it to you who are united to your 
ministers " in one hope of your calHng,"* who love them 
as the helpers of your joy and the pastors of your souls, 
for the " spirit of prayer and supplication"! will have 
already suggested it to you ; and I shall not name it to 
others; for to those who know not the value and the 
blessedness of a throne of grace for themselves, how 
can we ^ay, " Brethren, pray for us."J 

Hoping, then, to be " filled with the knowledge of 
God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,"^ 
and to be strengthened and supported by the prayers of 
God's people, while engaged in the highest subject which 
can occupy the heart and tongue of man, I shall, with- 
out further remark, commence upon the undertaking. 

No history of the Lord Jesus Christ would be com- 
plete without some reference, however brief, to the 
cause of his advent from the bosom of the Father, to 
live, and travail, and agonize, and die, in a world of sin; 

* Ephes. iv, 4. t Zechariah xii. 10. t 1 Thess. v. 25. $ Coloss. i. 9. 



LECTURE I. 17 

or without some mention of the manner in which that 
advent was effected. 

The cause is revealed to us in the unerring word of 
God, when it declares, "Jesus Christ came into the 
world to save sinners;" and is plainly recognised by our 
church, when she says that God's " blessed Son was 
manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, 
and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life;"* 
and still further that God has given him '' to be unto us 
a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life;"f 
These were the motives of his advent, to "finish the 
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make 
reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
righteousness.''^ 

The manner of our Lord's advent was equally re- 
markable, and, until God's own word had revealed the 
mystery, equally incomprehensible. 

" A virgin was to conceive and bear a son ;"§ a new 
thing the Lord was to create upon the earth, " a woman 
was to compass a man,"|| that so a body was to be pre- 
pared for the incarnation of the eternal Son of God 
without spot of pollution, or taint of sin, in which he 
should do and suffer the will of his God. Our church, 
in her admirable Litany, has with peculiar propriety 
and precision called this the " mystery of Christ's holy 
incarnation ;" and well would it be if her members were 
guided by the same spirit of deep humility which influ- 
enced her when she thus expressed herself. We should 
not then have been called to combat the fearful heresy 
of Christ's sinful humanity, or have heard language 

* Collect for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany. 

t Second Sunday after Easter. | Daniel ix. 24. $ Isaiah vii. 14. 

II Jeremiah xxxi. 22. 

2* 



18 LECTURE I. ' 

applied to the immaculate Jesus, which cannot but lead 
us to tremble for the spiritual welfare of those who use 
it. It is enough for the humble-minded Christian to be 
assured that the incarnation is a mystery, and a holy 
mystery ; that the miraculous conception of the Virgin 
was, as the angel of God had pronounced it, a ^^ holy 
thing;"* that he who was born of her was "holy, harm- 
less, undefiled, separate from sinners," partaking of all 
the innocent infirmities of our nature, and of none other. 
So much God has been pleased to reveal even of this 
high mystery, and therefore this is the believer's por- 
tion ; over all beyond, the same God has thrown an im- 
penetrable veil, and the true child of God will sit down 
in faith and patience before that veil, waiting contentedly 
for the coming day when it shall be drawn aside by 
God's own hand, and the inscrutable secrets as well as 
the unutterable glories which lie within it, shall be made 
the subject of the clearest vision. 

" Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise." 
Joseph, his reputed father, having been warned by the 
angel of the Lord that Mary, his espoused wife, had 
been selected from among all the daughters of men to 
be the mother of the Messiah, and that that holy thing 
which should be born of her should be called the Son of 
God, no longer feared to take unto him Mary his wife. 
While they were dwelling together in Nazareth, a city 
of GaHlee, in holy expectation of that great event, which 
was the " desire of all nations,"f a decree was passed 
by the Roman emperor, that all persons throughout the 
empire, then embracing the larger portion of the known 
world, should be enrolled. In consequence of this de- 

* Luke i. 35. t Haggai ii. 7. 



LECTURE I. 19 

cree, Joseph and Mary, as the lineal descendants of 
David, left Nazareth, and journeyed to Bethlehem, his 
native city, a small town distant about sixty miles from 
the place in which they were then resident : thus fulfil- 
ling, under the most improbable circumstances — cir- 
cumstances over which they themselves had no control — 
the important prophecy of Micah, that out of Bethlehem 
should " He come forth who was to be Ruler in Israel, 
whose goings forth have been from of old, from ever- 
lasting."* 

Remarkable evidence have we here of the manner in 
which the prophecies of the Most High are brought to 
pass ! The Roman Emperor, seated upon his throne, 
knowing nothing and caring nothing for the God who 
placed him there, issues a decree, the result of his own 
vainglory, to enrol the names, and occupations, and 
properties, of the widely-spreading myriads who ac- 
knowledged his authority; and all for what purpose, 
and for what high and mighty end ? That a poor car- 
penter should be obhged to undertake a journey of sixty 
miles, at a time when nothing but compulsion would have 
induced him, that so the Church of God throughout all 
ages might have unquestioned and unquestionable evi- 
dence to thq identity of the child now to be born, with him 
" of whom Moses and the Prophets did write."f Blessed 
be God, brethren, that we have this '^ more sure word 
of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, 
as unto a hght that shineth in a dark place, until the 
day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts."| 

Having arrived at Bethlehem, they found, as might 
naturally have been expected, that this little town was 

* Micah V. 2. t John i. 45. t 2 Peter i. 12. 



20 LECTURE I. 

crowded to excess by the influx which the decree of the 
emperor had occasioned. " And so it was," says the 
inspired historian, "that while they were there, the days 
were accompHshed that she should be deUvered. And 
she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him 
in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because 
there was no room for them in the inn." We sometimes 
hear the Christian, and the true Christian speak in tones 
which appear not wholly destitute of self-gratulation, of 
having renounced the world, forgone its vanities and its 
splendours, and given up, it may be, some one of the 
thousand comforts and luxuries with which their cup is 
filled, for the honour and glory of God, and for the sake 
of the Redeemer. Some of you, perhaps, can recollect 
the manifestation of no very dissimilar state of feeling, 
even by an apostle, by one whose heart beat high with 
love to his Redeemer, and who rejoiced in the prospect 
of attending his career of poverty and suffering, and 
yet who could not so completely silence the feelings of 
the natural man, as to repress the vainglorious excla- 
mation, " Lo, we have left all, and followed thee."f 
Turn, then, for a moment from such examples, from the 
very highest example which man can offer, to this, of 
" the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords ;"J see him 
voluntarily descending from the most exalted throne in 
heaven to the lowest, poorest, humblest station upon earth. 
Dwell for a moment in imagination upon this amazing 
scene, upon this wondrous effort of redeeming love, and 
then say, are you not ashamed of the manner in which 
you over-rate your sacrifices and your self-denials of 
the cause, or for the sake of Christ ! Behold the Ancient 

* Luke ii. 6, 7. t Luke xviii. 28. | 1 Timothy vi. 15. 



LECTURE I. 21 

of Days, whose goings forth have been from everlast- 
ing, condescending, for you, and for your salvation, to 
become a child of a span long ; look into the manger at 
Bethlehem, and see him lying there a little helpless babe; 
you need not carry on your thoughts to the thirty years 
of misery which awaited him, while thus " coming unto 
his own, and his own receiving him not ;"^ bearing theii; 
rejection, suffering their contempt, perishing from their 
cruelty. No ! this opening scene is sufficient to convict 
us all. We have need to blush and be ashamed for 
the poor, miserable pittance of self-denial, devotedness, 
and love, which we are returning for this costly sacri- 
fice. At such a sight, the language of our hearts should 
be, " Lord, nothing which I possess is too good for thee ; 
nothing which thou hast ever given shall be withheld 
from thee, if thou demandest it ; myself, my soul, my 
body, all, all are at thy disposal, my best but a 
blemished sacrifice, and myself an unprofitable ser- 
vant." 

But I would yet once more call you to look for a pass- 
ing moment into the stable at Bethlehem, and draw from 
thence another lesson. I do not refer to this humble 
and obscure abode, that the view may exalt your ideas 
of the infinite humility and self-abasement of the Incar- 
nate Son ; for to have been born the noblest potentate 
that earth has ever seen would have exhibited as large 
a share of humiUty, and have been in itself as deep a 
degradation for one so unspeakably glorious, as to pass 
for the son of that poor carpenter, and to lie in that 
obscure and humble stable ; but I call upon you to view 
him there, that you may rightly estimate the value of 

* John i. 11. 



22 LECTURE I. 

all earthly distinctions in the sight of God. They are, 
doubtless, for wise and admirable purposes not only 
permitted, but appointed by himself; but when we see 
him thus in the person of the only-begotten Son selecting 
from them all, the poor man's lot, in which to visit us, 
we must surely feel, that there is naturally in our minds, 
and in our hearts, an over-weening attachment to the 
great things of the world, its glittering follies, and its 
splendid lies, which ought to be uprooted and subdued 
before we can, as w^e are bound, resemble him whose 
name we bear. Surely the first faint and feeble cry 
which issued from the manger of Bethlehem said, in 
language which cannot be misunderstood, "My king- 
dom is not of this world."^ " Love not the w^orld, 
neither the things which are in the world. If any man 
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."f 
Surely we cannot be, in heart and in life, the followers 
of this self-denying Saviour, unless we are content with 
the portion of this world's good which he sees fit to 
bestow upon us, however small ; unless we are willing 
to lay down, without repining, our worldly blessings, 
however dear, and to acknowledge, heartily and sin- 
cerely to acknowledge, that we had rather be " rich in 
faith and heirs of the kingdom,"J than rank among the 
wealthiest, or take our place among the noblest of the 
world. 

We pass on to the first incident recorded by the 
inspired writers, after the birth of our divine Saviour. 
" There were in the same country shepherds abiding in 
the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And 
Jo! the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the 

* John xviii. 36. t 1 John ii. 15. t James ii. 5. 



LECTURE I. 23 

glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they 
were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear 
not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, 
which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this 
day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the 
Lord."* 

How inscrutable are the ways of God ! Of all classes 
of men, thus to select those who were least favoured by 
outward circumstances ; of all orders of intellect, thus 
to choose those least enlarged by education or culture, 
to whom first to communicate the wonderful intelligence 
of the salvation of a world ! O, what honour was that 
day poured upon the humble and the lowly among the 
sons of men, who gain their daily bread by daily labour, 
when crowned kings and mitred priests were passed 
over, and the poor shepherd at his midnight watch was 
selected to be the first depositary of the glorious intelli- 
gence* 

My poorer brethren, here is much in this little incident 
for your encouragement and comfort. You are, perhaps, 
sometimes tempted to believe that, in placing you in the 
station in which your lot has been cast, your heavenly 
Father, so bountiful to others, has dealt unkindly and 
unjustly by you. There are, undoubtedly, privations to 
which you are pecuHarly exposed, and from which your 
wealthier brethren are exempt. It is vain for me to tell 
you, although it is unquestionably true, that these are far 
fewer and less important than you imagine ; for we are 
aware that it is an inseparable principle of our fallen 
nature to multiply our own woes, and to magnify our 
neighbour's happiness. I will not, therefore, occupy 

* Luke, ii. 8-11. 



24 LECTURE I. 

your time in the fruitless endeavour : but of this, as a 
minister of God, and upon the authority of God, I may 
assure you, that *' God hath chosen the poor of this 
world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which 
he hath promised to them that love him ;"* that as 
you to w^hom I am now speaking — the laborious poor — 
were the first to whom the advent of the Saviour was 
revealed, the first to whom the gospel was proclaimed, 
and that by the lips of the angel messengers of God, so 
in all ages have you been the first to receive and to 
obey, and to delight in, these good tidings ; while the 
very privations and restrictions of your lot are instru- 
mentally among the motives which induce you to lend 
a willing ear and an open heart to their reception. 
Many efforts are. making at the present time, unhappily, 
to rob you of this marked and blessed superiority. The 
sabbath-breaker, with a cruelty which few can equal, is 
striving, by every means in his power to tempt you to 
the desecration of this day of heavenly rest ; the poli- 
tician to engage your thoughts and attention upon sub- 
jects which cannot profit you, and which, perhaps, have 
never really profited, as an immortal being, a single 
individual who engaged in them ; the infidel, to seduce 
you to the perusal of blasphemous and irreligious publi- 
cations, which, injurious as they are to all, add a refine- 
ment to their injury when they address themselves to 
you, destroying not only your hope of joy hereafter, but 
the only possession of joy which has been vouchsafed to 
you here. Before you Hsten, even for a moment, to 
those who would thus deprive you of the most invaluable 
prerogative which God has, as a compensation, affixed 

* James ii. 5. 



LECTURE I. 25 

to the poor man's lot, ask yourselves, " If this be taken 
from me, what have I left?" Others may, amid the 
transient pleasures, and joys, and wealth of this world, 
revel for a time in forgetfulness of all that is to follow, 
but you have not even these " miserable comforters."* 
In taking from you your belief in God, your trust in 
Christ, your hope of glory, your sabbath peacefulness 
and holy joy, they are robbing you of that which alone 
can make the hovel of the pauper happier than the 
palaces of princes ; and if they succeed, they will inevi- 
tably leave you ^' of all men most miserable."t 

But why should I confine the application of this 
instructive incident to the poor ? The language of the 
angel to the shepherds was, not only " Behold, I bring 
you good tidings of great joy," but, " which shall be to 
all people*" Yes, brethren, " to all people :" for all was 
the Saviour born, for all did the Saviour die, to all is 
the Saviour preached, and to all and to each, w^ithout 
exception and without reserve, is the Saviour most 
freely oflfered* 

We would, therefore, say to every individual of every 
class and rank in society — from the king upon the throne 
to the prisoner in the dungeon— Here are, if you will 
receive them, " tidings of great joy" to you, the way to 
the Father freely opened, reconciliation and pardon 
fully oflTered. For when that angel choir united in the 
heavenly anthem, " Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good-will towards men,"J then was the 
joyous hour that, in the person of the babe in Bethlehem, 
a Deliverer was found by God himself, and the " ever- 
lasting gates" were lifted up, and a passage was opened 

* Job. xvi. 2. t 1 Corinthians xv. 19. t Luke ii. 14. 

3 



26 LECTURE I. . 

for all kindred, and nations, and people, and tongues, 
into the eternal kingdom and joy of our Lord. 

Turn we now from the announcement of this great 
mystery by the angel, to its effect upon the shepherds. 
No sooner had the last of that angelic company winged 
his flight back to those regions of bliss from which he 
came, and the last notes of the heavenly anthem died 
upon the gale, than we find the shepherds saying to one 
another, " Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see 
this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath 
made known to us."* What a remarkable evidence 
of faith, and zeal, and love ! " Let us now go ;" not 
to-morrow, but to-day, this very hour, this moment, 
although they had been watching their flocks through- 
out the livelong night ; no feelings of fatigue, no con- 
sideration of personal inconvenience, could delay them 
for a single hour ! And observe ; not, let us go and see 
whether this thing be come to pass, which the Lord 
hath made known; but, let us go and see this thing 
which is come to pass. They never for an instant 
questioned the certainty and the reality of all that had 
been revealed to them. What an instance of that true 
faith which is " the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen,"t which beheves God so im- 
plicitly as to take him instantly at his word, and to think 
nothing too great, nothing too good, to be true, which he 
has once plainly declared. Brethren, this is the faith of 
which we all so greatly stand in need. We are for ever 
disposed to question, and to doubt, and to reason, where 
we ought in all child-like simplicity to believe and act. 
Our feeling should be, God has himself of his unspeak- 

* Luke ii. 15. t Hebrews xi. 1. 



LECTURE I. 27 

able mercy offered to me, a miserable sinner, pardon 
and peace; he has told me in the plainest and most 
unquestionable language, that they who come to this 
Saviour shall in no wise be cast out. This, then, is all 
that you require; if you cannot remember, if you do 
not know another offer of salvation, another promise of 
acceptance throughout the Bible, you do know and can 
remember this ; and one such promise " which the Lord 
hath made known," is sufficient for you in life and 
death, in time and in eternity. You may at once, God's 
grace enabling you, receive and act upon it; you may 
at once betake yourself to that Saviour, and with all 
your numberless transgressions, which you desire deeply 
to deplore, and truly to forsake, cast your soul unhesi- 
tatingly upon him to justify you and to sanctify you 
here, and according to his most gracious promise, to 
glorify you in the world to come. This is reahzing the 
shepherds' faith, and must draw down the Shepherd's 
blessing : you shall, like them, " return glorifying and 
praising God,"* for your eyes will have seen, and your 
heart will have felt, his salvation. 

One more consideration, and I have done. While 
these poor shepherds, who entered into the stable and 
sought and found the Saviour, received the blessing, 
many among the Bethlehemites, no doubt, passed and 
repassed the stable door, but never thought of entering 
in, or of inquiring after him who lay there. Brethren, 
see that it be not thus with yourselves during the ensuing 
season. You who have sufficient time at your command 
for many an hour of frivolous occupation during the 
day, remember that these doors will be open — that your 

* Luke ii. 20. 



28 LECTURE I. 

ministers will be at their post — that if God bestows upon 
us health and grace, the Saviour will be here presented, 
in all the important circumstances of his mortal history, 
to the minds and hearts of his people. You need no 
angel messenger to tell you where to find him ; if you 
pass unheeding by, you will find no angel monitor to 
charge you with indiflference and neglect. And you, 
my Christian brethren, let me entreat, to unite your 
prayers to mine, that many poor, and blind, and igno- 
rant wanderers, may be led, during the course of 
lectures which we have this day commenced, to 
receive the offers of salvation as freely as they will be 
freely tendered; to draw near with a true and lively 
faith to the great Deliverer of their souls, and ultimately 
to leave this house of God, as the shepherds left the 
stable, rejoicing in the sight and in the knowledge of 
him, " whom truly to know is everlasting life ; ■'* glori- 
fying and praising God, and enabled to say from a 
broken, a contrite, and believing heart, I have often* 
times before heard of thee " by the hearing of the ear„ 
but now mine eye seeth thee."t 

* Collect for St. Philip and St. James's Day. t Job. xlii. 5. 



29 



LECTURE II. 

St. Luke ii. 21. 

" When eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the 
child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the 
angel before he was conceived in the womb." 

We continue the narrative this nnorning, as recorded 
by the same evangelist, from whom we derived the 
account of the shepherds' visit; and we commence with 
the first act of obedience and of suffering to which the 
infant Saviour was summoned — the rite of circumcision. 

It may, at first sight, appear matter of astonishment, 
that the pure and sinless Jesus should be subjected to a 
rite which pre-supposed impurity and sin. It is indeed 
obvious, that for one at least of the purposes for which 
all the other children of Abraham received this rite as 
a symbol of the renewing of a corrupt nature, and the 
putting away the lusts of the flesh, it was to our Lord 
wholly unnecessary; for what purpose, then, did he, the 
spotless Saviour, subject himself to this painful, and, as 
regarded his own person, if we consider him individually 
and not federally, unnecessary rite ? 

The reason, brethren, was doubtless this. The Lord 
Jesus came to fulfil the whole law of God, that he 
might work out a perfect righteousness; as he came 
to suffer the whole penalty for sin, that he might offer 
" a perfect sacrifice." 

3* 



30 LECTURE II. 

Now the rite of circumcision was the initiatory rite 
of the Jewish religion, just as baptism is the initiatory- 
rite of the Christian. When, therefore, upon the eighth 
day of his mortal life, the infant Saviour submitted to 
this important rite, it was in effect saying, as plainly as 
actions could proclaim, that he was willing to be made 
in all things like unto his brethren — that he came not 
to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them. 
And this, it is evident, would be perfectly intelligible to 
the Jews, however it may need explanation to us ; for 
it was most clearly understood that, as St. Paul ex- 
presses it, every man who was circumcised was " a 
debtor to do the whole law."* Circumcision, there- 
fore, was the gate by which the holy Jesus entered the 
temple of the Mosaic Covenant, and having so entered, 
he could not leave the house, but as a voluntary bonds- 
man whose ear had been bored to the door-post,f he 
became bound to its ordinances for ever. 

Here then was the commencement of that active 
obedience, by which the law of God was to be ho- 
noured in every part, and the precepts of God fully 
and entirely obeyed, and an everlasting righteousness 
brought in as a justifying righteousness for his re- 
deemed people; "that as by one man's disobedience 
many w^ere made sinners, so by the obedience of one 
should many be made righteous.^'J 

But important, deeply important, as this considera- 
tion is to the spiritual life of the Christian, there is yet 
another deduction to be drawn from the rite of circum- 
cision, to which, in this place it may not be unprofitable 
to allude. Observe how powerful an argument the 

* Galatians v. 3. t See Exodus xxi. 6. | Romans v. 19. 

I 



LECTURE II. 31 

circumcision of infants offers for the baptism of infants. 
Is not the most frequent objection which we hear urged 
against this valuable sacrament, the fact that the child 
knows nothing of the truths involved in it, or the obli- 
gations enforced by it ; and does not the same objection 
apply with equal force against the rite of circumcision ? 
Can we imagine, then, that the children of the Jew 
were to be allowed, as they obviously were, that "sign 
of the righteousness which is by faith,"* and to take 
upon themselves the obligations of that covenant to 
_ which it was initiatory, and to be partakers of its bless- 
ings and its privileges; and can we suppose for a mo- 
ment that the children of Christian parents were to be 
robbed of these comforts and advantages? No, we 
cannot but believe that if, as the word of God assures 
us, Christ in all things was to "have the pre-eminence"! 
over Moses, then can there be no blessing, no privilege, 
no immunity, granted under the old dispensation, which 
is not retained, with at least its full endowment of Old 
Testament blessings, under the more gracious dispensa- 
tion of the New; ^^else," as the apostle emphatically 
declares, "else, were your children unclean, but now 
are they holy,"J that is, else were they debarred from 
entering into covenant with God, but now are they free 
to be admitted. Else, as we may fairly add, did the 
pious Jew Hve under a happier and more benign dis- 
pensation than ourselves — for he was repeatedly as- 
sured that the promises were to him and to his seed — 
while we, if debarred from the privileges of infant 
baptism, have no such assurance, but must leave our 
dear children to the uncovenanted mercies of God. 

* Romans iii. 22; iv. 11. t Colossians i. 18. t 1 Corinthians vii. 14. 



# 32 LECTURE 11. 

At the time of his circumcision, our Lord, accord- 
ing to the Jewish custom, received his name, and " was 
called Jesus ! which was so named of the angel before 
he was conceived in the womb."* — *^Thou shalt call 
his name Jesus," said the angel to our Lord's reputed 
father, ** for he shall save his people from their sins."f 
Then was that name bestowed upon the incarnate Son 
which has now for eighteen centuries been the watch- 
word of peace, and joy, and strong consolation, to the 
Church of God. That name of power, of which the 
Holy Spirit has declared that God had given him a 
name which is above every name, that " at the name 
of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven,- 
and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and 
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." That name of 
mercy, of which the evangelist declared, " signs, and 
wonders, and healings, were done by the name of the 
holy child Jesus ;"J at the sound of which the lame 
walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, and 
the very dead were raised. That name of love, of 
which the church of old declared, " Thy name is as 
ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love 
thee."§ All of power, all of mercy, all of love, which 
the weak, and wounded, and bleeding heart can need, 
is treasured up for it in that blessed name. 

My brethren, have you experimentally found that 
there is virtue in the name of Jesus? Have you ever 
suffered from deep depression of spirit, when all around 
you was dark and lowering, and no single ray of hope 
from earthly objects came struggling through the gloom, 

* Luke ii. 2L t Matthew i. 21. | Acts iv. 30. $ Canticles i. 3 



LECTURE II. 33 

when you have felt as if all had forsaken you, and ^* no 
man cared for your soul ;"* at such an hour have you 
never experienced the matchless pov^er and efficacy of 
that name of love ? O, there is in those short syllables 
a sound more soothing than the fanning of a seraph's 
wing, more musical than the melody of an angel's harp. 
For that name alone is able to sustain the sinking spirit, 
to bind up the broken heart, and to bring peace and 
comfort to the despairing soul. Nay, more, that name 
can bring, what no other name which the lips of man 
have ever uttered can aspire to bring, pardon and ac- 
ceptance to the most hardened, most rebellious, most 
God-forgetting spirit among us all. He was called 
Jesus, because he came to save his people from the 
guilt, from the power, from the consequences of their 
sins. 

Has, then, that name no charms for you ? Have you 
heard it often, and repeated it often, and does it convey 
no pleasurable feeHngs to your heart? We do not 
usually hear unmoved the name of one we love ; the 
quickened ear catches the sound amidst a thousand 
voices ; and of a thousand names hears that and that 
alone ; the throbbing heart beats faster and higher when 
that name is mentioned, for it comes laden with the re- 
collection of past joys, and hopes of future happiness. 
So is it to the true children of God with the name of 
Jesus, their Saviour, Redeemer, Friend ; it reminds them 
of all that God has done for their souls ; of all the as- 
surances of pardon and peace which that blessed name 
has sealed to them ; of those short and transient mo- 
ments of close and intimate communion with him who 

* Psalm cxlii. 4. 



34 LECTURE IL 

bears that name, which they have already reaUzed ; of 
those ages, those eternal ages of happiness and joy, 
which they yet hope to spend in the Redeemer's pre- 
sence, and amidst the endearments of the Redeemer's 
love. Blessed, thrice blessed is every soul among you, 
who can in that holy name recognise one who has saved 
you from your sins, who is the best-beloved of your soul 
now, and who, when your heart and your flesh fail you, 
shall be the strength of your heart, and your portion for 
ever. 

The next incident in the infant history of our Lord, 
to which the evangelist calls our attention, is his " pre- 
sentation in the temple:" — " They brought him to Jeru-. 
salem," says St. Luke, " to present him to the Lord."* 
This was again an act of obedience to the ceremonial 
ritual of the Jews. I need scarcely remind you that 
the custom originated in an express command of God, 
when he preserved the children of Israel, but slew all the 
first-born of Egypt. At that most remarkable instance 
of the Divine interference, God declared, " Sanctify 
unto me all the first-born, whatsoever openeth the womb 
among the children of Israel, both of man and beast : 
it is mine."f " And all the first-born of man among thy 
children shalt thou redeem."J In pursuance of this 
command, the parents of the infant Jesus brought him, 
when he was forty days old, to the temple, probably to 
redeem him by offering in his stead the sum of money, 
five shekels, required by the law, but certainly to " pre- 
sent him to the Lord." The first act, then, which his 
parents performed for the infant Jesus, was this, — they 
'presented him to the Lord, Many are the Christian 

* Luke ii. 22. t Exodus, xiii. 2. t Exodus, xiii. 13. 



LECTURE II. 35 

parents whom I am now addressing: many who delight, 
far above all other gifts with which the Lord has blessed 
them, in the thought of those young heirs of immortahty 
who are so especially commended to their regards, and 
entrusted to their guardianship. May I not, then, ven- 
ture to ask all such, have you imitated the example of 
this holy pair, by presenting your little ones as a free- 
will offering to the Lord ! How beautiful to the Chris- 
tian mind is the picture of a mother receiving for the 
first time her babe into her arms, and while pressing it 
to her bosom, and raising a silent thanksgiving to him 
who gave it, freely presenting it to the Lord, giving 
it back again to the Author of all her mercies, and 
declaring from the very ground of her heart, that, as 
her first and dearest petition, she asks for it neither 
health, nor fortune, nor power, nor fame, but a portion 
in the love of God and a place in his kingdom. I trust 
there are many among you in all ranks, who have 
realized these Christian feelings, and have already had 
reason to believe, by the opening indications of Divine 
grace visible in the first dawnings of your children's 
minds, that your offering has been accepted. Some of 
you, perhaps, there are, w^ho have seen even more than 
this, who have lived to see the Lord, to whom you pre- 
sented your offspring, prepare by the more than ordi- 
nary outpourings of his Spirit, their young hearts for the 
enjoyment of himself, and you have mourned over their 
early grave, where you should, perhaps, rather have 
exulted over their early blessedness, and have praised 
God that some of the best and dearest have been re- 
moved from the coming evil, and safely housed before 
the tempest has set in. And are there not a few who 
in all sincerity and devotedness of heart have presented 



36 LECTURE II. 

your children to the Lord, and yet are called to exercise 
much faith and patience while awaiting his decision, 
who see no signs of early grace, no evidences that he 
has condescended to accept your offering. Christian 
parents, be of good courage, continue to bear your 
children upon your heart before the Lord ; he will 
not disdain a mother's offering, he will not despise a 
mother's prayer. You may never yet have had reason 
to know that your offering has been accepted ; but if 
you are conscious that it has been sincerely, and faith- 
fully^ and heartily made, there is every encouragement 
which revelation and experience can supply to lead you 
to believe, that your Father will yet be their Father, 
and your God their God. 

It was while Joseph and Mary were in the temple, 
presenting their first-born to the Lord, and making the 
accustomed offering for the mother's purification, that 
one of those strikingly touching incidents, which so 
often adorn the gospel history, took place. An aged 
man of God, who had long been waiting for the conso- 
lation of Israel, and whose footsteps even now lingered, 
upon the brink of eternity, entered the temple. He had 
been living for many years in a humble dependence 
upon an express revelation from God^ " that he should 
not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ."* ^ 
That long-expected day had now arrived ; and by the 
inspiration of the Holy Ghost he was led to enter the 
house of God at the very hour when the great prophecy 
of Malachi, concerning " the glory" of this "latter 
house"! — " The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly 
come to his temple"J — was fulfilling. How inexpressi- 

*Lukeii. 26. tHaggaiii. 9. | Malachi iii. 1. 



LECTURE II. 37 

ble must have been the feeUngs of this aged saint, when 
the Holy Ghost revealed to him his incarnate Saviour, 
" the Lord's Christ,''* — in the person of the babe of 
Bethlehem. If, like many among his brethren, he had 
been expecting a temporal kingdom, and a Messiah 
from among the great ones of the world, what would 
have been his disappointment at the sight of this poverty- 
stricken couple and their helpless infant ! Yet, nothing 
doubting, the old man received the child in his arms, 
and blessing God for a mercy of which he felt himself 
undeserving, burst forth into that hymn of praise which 
has since been, in all ages, the dehght and solace of the 
Church, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."f While 
at the same instant, Anna, a prophetess, a widow of 
fourscore • and four years, coming in, and hearing 
Simeon thus declaring by Divine revelation the dignity 
and glory of the holy child Jesus, united her praises also 
to the God of their salvation, that the prayers of Israel 
were answered, and the long-looked-for redemption of 
Israel was achieved. \ ^ 

How great an honour did the Almighty here put upon 
these aged saints, that, of all the dwellers in Jerusalem, 
of all the worshippers in that temple, they, and they 
alone, should be selected for this first interview with the 
Lord of the temple. There were many wise, many 
learned, at that time in Jerusalem, some even of those 
who often trod the courts of the temple, and who had 
well read and understood the prophecies of the Messiah; 
for we shortly afterwards find that they were able with 
great accuracy to inform Herod where the Christ should 

* Luke ii. 26. t Luke ii. 29. 



38 LECTURE II. 

be born ; and yet no one of these was led to the 
temple upon that day and hour, to behold the infant 
Jesus, and participate in the joy of which Simeon and 
Anna were partakers ! And why, brethren, speaking 
after the fashion of men, why did God select this hum- 
ble pair for this high honour ? Surely it was because 
they were pre-eminent among those who were " waiting 
for the consolation of Israel ;"* whose prayers, and 
thoughts, and affections, were continually going forth to 
meet the coming Saviour, who acted up to the degree 
of light which God had vouchsafed to them, and prayed 
fervently, and sought diligently, and waited patiently for 
more. Therefore were they guided to the temple ou 
that auspicious day, and on that happy hour. 

Now let us inquire what is there similar to this, 
in God's dealings at the present day with ourselves? 
The generation among whom our lot has been cast 
is, unquestionably, an intelligent generation, a wise 
and understanding people. ^^ Many," as the prophet 
Daniel foretold, '' run to and fro, and knowledge is 
increased ;"t men of wisdom, men of learning, men of 
science abound ; but, alas ! how often are all their 
thoughts and meditations engaged upon subjects which, 
if they do not necessarily exclude God, certainly do not 
necessarily lead to God ; who, if they, according to the 
false reasonings of a natural religion, profess to pay 
some respect to the God of nature, are lamentably 
ignorant of a God of grace, of the triune God of the 
Christian, of him who has said that " all men should 
honour the Son even as they honour the Father."J 
And what is the consequence? The Holy Spirit of 

* Luke ii. 25. t Daniel xii. 4. | John v. 23. 



LECTURE II. 39 

God passes by these learned and these scientific men, 
and delights in bringing to the temple the man whose 
heart, Hke Simeon's, overflows with love to God, and 
whose mind and thoughts are filled with desire after 
his name ; the woman, who, hke Anna, departs not 
from the service of God night or day; persons like 
these, who in the sight of men have Httle, perhaps 
nothing, to recommend them, but who possess that 
which, in the sight of God, is above all price ; who, 
in the quiet, unobtrusive duties of a lowly Christian 
walk and conversation are daily waiting upon God ; 
and amidst the toils and business of life, are looking 
anxiously forward to the day when the Lord Jesus 
shall appear unto their complete salvation, seeking 
more of that fight which cometh down from above^ 
and of that peace which passeth all understanding. 
These, and such as these, the Holy Ghost still leads 
to his temple, at those blessed seasons, and those 
favourable opportunities, when the necessities of their 
souls can be the most abundantly suppfied. Yes, we 
scruple not to say, for we believe that the experience 
of some who hear us will fully bear us out in the asser- 
tion, that many are the times when you, whom we have 
J now described, have come to the temple of God with 
^ your m.inds anxiously inquiring after some of the great 
) and saving truths of his w^ord, and you have found your 
doubts cleared up, your difficulties removed, your fondest 
I expectations more than realized. Or you have come 
rweighed down with the consciousness of sin, or op- 
3 pressed with sorrow, or tried by temptations, and have 
found in the temple of the Lord, that a word in season 
has been prepared for you, so pecufiarly adapted to 
your w^ants, that had you yourself selected the subject, 



40 LECTURE IL 

you could have chosen none better calculated to bring 
peace and consolation to your souls. Or, again, the 
time has been, when you were beginning to inquire 
respecting heavenly things, and were groping your way 
painfully and erringly amidst much apprehension and 
mistake ; and your feet have been led by the Spirit of 
God to the temple of God, and there, before you left 
those walls, your search has terminated ; the hope and 
" consolation of Israel," even Christ the Lord, has been 
revealed to you ; and, like the holy persons of whom 
we are speaking, you have seen what many prophets 
and kings desired to see, and have not seen. And, 
brethren, even more than this is prepared for you; the 
same who is engaged in leading you into all truth, will 
lead you into all peace and all consolation, until he pre- 
sent you blameless before the presence of him " whom 
not having seen, you love."* 

Finally, if you can experimentally testify to these 
things, bless God who has so graciously and so bounti- 
fully fulfilled to you his promise that " they who seek 
shall find."f And while you rejoice, as you have reason 
to do, and in gratitude are bound to do, for what the 
Lord has done for your soul, keep in mind the closing 
testimony which Simeon bore to the Saviour whom he 
loved, ^^ Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising 
again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be 
spoken against, that the thoughts of many hearts may 
be revealed. "J It is as essential a part of the revelation 
of Jesus that he should be '' set for the fall," as for " the 
rising of many in Israel;" his Gospel has ever been, and 
must ever be, a "savour of death unto death," as well as 
a " savour of life unto life ;"§ and he will in all ages of 

* 1 Peter i. 8. t Matthew vii. 7. X Luke ii. 34, 35. $ 2 Corin. ii. 16. 



LECTURE II. 41 

the church, be to many "a sign which shall be spoken 
against."* Be not, then, discouraged, if there are those 
who view not the Lord Jesus Christ as you view him; 
be not cast down, if there be those who even dare to 
" speak against"! the Lord of glory. Simeon foretold, 
even while he held that innocent babe in his arms, and 
with prophetic eye foresaw the full-grown man walking 
in his innocency as perfect as that spotless infant, that 
all, would not secure him from the breath of calumny, 
the tongue of slander, the language of contempt, and 
mockery, and hate ; and while he announced the painful 
truth, he as plainly divulged the reason for which a 
God of justice would permit it — " that the thoughts of 
many hearts might be revealed." In this our time of 
trial, brethren, the tongue of the enemy and the blas- 
phemer must remain unbridled, that " the thoughts of 
their hearts may be revealed" before men, and may find 
a passage upward to the throne of God, and be entered 
in those books of his remembrance, out of which we 
shall be called to an account for every guilty w^ord 
which we have spoken. Be not, then, cast down, that 
the Saviour whom you love is still " a sign which shall 
be spoken against ;" but O, let the recollection of this 
painful fact render you unceasingly watchful that no 
part of your own conduct, no tempers, language, actions, 
w^ords of yours, shall justly give occasion to the enemy 
to speak against the Saviour whose name you bear, and 
whose example you profess to follow ; lest, as regards 
your enemies, you are instrumental in increasing their 
guilt and their condemnation, and, as regards your 
Redeemer, you compel him to say, '* I was wounded in 
the house of my friends."J 

* Luke ii. 34. t Numbers xii. 8. t Zechariah xiii. 6. 

4* 



42 



LECTURE III. 

St. Luke ii. 51. 

*' And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was 
subject unto them." 

One of the many difficulties which present themselves, 
while endeavouring to give a connected view of the 
history of our blessed Lord, is to ascertain the order in 
which the different circumstances related by the different 
evangeHsts, took place. There are, it is true, many 
excellent harmonies of the gospels, but these vary fre- 
quently from each other, and are not infallible even 
when they agree ; so that the careful inquirer must be 
content, at the best, with adopting that arrangement 
which appears the most probable, although aware that 
there will still be many points upon which the arguments 
which have influenced his own mind in the decision he 
has arrived at, can scarcely be expected to have equal 
weight with those who hear him. 

These observations have arisen from considering at 
what period the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, 
mentioned by St. Matthew, but omitted by all the other 
evangelists, occurred. We are generally in the habit of 
considering it almost simultaneous with the visit of the 
shepherds ; and in this opinion some of the earlier biblical 
critics agree ; but, upon the whole, there appears more 



LECTURE III. • 43 

reason for inserting the incident, as we are now doing, 
after the return of the parents of our Lord to Bethlehem, 
upon the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple. 

Probably, therefore, our Lord w^as about a twelve- 
month old when the following remarkable mcident took 
place. Certain wise men, or Magi, the inhabitants of 
that part of Arabia which borders upon Judea, came 
from the east of Jerusalem. They had been directed 
from their own country by the appearance of a star, in 
all probability of a meteoric nature, which,- it is reason- 
able to conclude^ had been connected in their minds, by 
some direct revelation from God, with the birth of the 
Messiah. 

As soon a^ they entered Jerusalem, their first inquiry 
was, " Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for 
we have seen his star in the east, and are come to 
w^orship him."* Whatever might be the manner in 
which it had pleased God to reveal this astonishing fact 
to them, one thing therefore is certain, that they im- 
plicitly believed the revelation ; for they never thought 
of asking, Is the King of the Jews born I but, Where is 
he born ? 

How ought such an inquiry, proceeding from such a 
quarter,, to- have put to shame the inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem. That Gentile strangers should be inquiring in 
the streets of the holy city for him who was born to be 
her King, while her children possessed so little desire, 
so little anxiety upon the subject, that not one could 
answer the important question ! After some little time, 
the zealous search established by the strangers reached 
the ears of the king, and Herod, even at his advanced 

* Matthew ii. 2. 



44 LECTURE III. 

age, for he was then more than seventy years old, still 
dreading a rival, took immediate alarm at the birth of 
this native prince, and assembled the chief priests and 
scribes, to ascertain from them in what part of his 
dominions such an event might be expected to take 
place. 

So accurate was the language of Divine prophecy 
upon this important point, that they had no hesitation in 
declaring, '' In Bethlehem of Judea ; for thus it was 
written by the prophet. And thou Bethlehem, in the 
land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of 
Juda, for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall 
rule my people Israel.^" All knew by the wisdom of 
their books where the Christ should be born ; but none, 
it appears, had prayed, and thought, and dwelt upon the 
blessed subject; — none had been waiting, and looking, 
and longing for the event, as one in which they were 
deeply and individually interested ; and therefore none, 
like Simeon and Anna, had seen the infant Jesus w^ith 
their eyes, and embraced him in their arms, and pressed 
him to their hearts. O, how Httle is there of comfort, 
of spiritual life, of soul-encouraging, heart-enlightening 
views of the Lord Jesus, to be found in a mere book 
knowledge of him: we may speak of him with the 
tongues of men, or even angels, and understand all 
mysteries and all knowledge, but if we have not love- 
that love to Christ w^hich seeks him as the hidden trea- 
sure, the pearl of great price, the Saviour of our soul— 
w^e are nothing. One poor woman, like Anna, who can 
come into the temple of God, and there find the Saviour 
to be all-sufficient for her necessities, and all-precious to 

* Matthew ii. 5, 6. 



LECTURE III. 45 

her soul, is more, infinitely more blessed, than whole 
colleges of the most learned doctors who, without such 
feelings, ever propounded the mysteries of science, or 
the mazes of prophecy, to their wondering disciples. 
Brethren, while you are careful not to despise even a 
verbal knowledge of the Scriptures of God, which has 
its residence only in the mind and in the memory, re- 
member there is something far beyond it; that that 
same word has said, " With the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness;"* that all knowledge of religion 
which does not centre and settle there> and through the 
heart influence the life and conversation, however accu- 
rate or however perfect, can neither sanctify nor save^ — 
can neither enable us now to delight ourselves in the 
presence of the Lord, nor hereafter in the fruition of his 
glory. 

The Magi having ascertained in what direction, they 
should search for the new-born King, took their depar- 
ture from Jerusalem, that they might without delay fulfil 
the great object of their journey, by paying their adora- 
tions to the Messiah. Of all that large and populous 
city, not a single individual appears to have accom- 
panied them ; not one was there in whose breast suffi- 
cient anxiety, or even sufficient curiosity, had been 
aroused to induce him to seek the Star of Bethlehem. 
Yet was the indiflference of all around them no hindrance 
to these truly " wise men;" Gentiles, though they were, 
they left the hol}^ city alone, as they had entered it 
alone ; and though none of the nominal people of the 
Lord went with them, neither the pleasures nor the 
business of that city could detain them, while their 

* Romans x. 10. 



46 LECTURE III. 

hearts and hopes were set upon him whose presence 
they so ardently sought; — an instance, surely, of no 
common faith and no common perseverance. It is easy 
in religion, as in every other pursuit, to go with the 
crowd, to seek the Lord Jesus Christ when and where 
all are seeking him ; but to come boldly out from the 
multitude, to seek him steadfastly, resolutely, and alone, 
when no other members of the society in which we 
move, of the family in which we live, are seeking him, 
when none will accompany us in our search ; this is a 
great and distinguishable test of a spirit of inquiry which 
Cometh down from above, and which God will most 
fully and abundantly prosper. 

Yes, brethren, if there be among you but one poor, 
blind, ignorant sinner, who is anxious to arrive at the 
knowledge, the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, let him take this incident to himself for his en- 
couragement and comfort. Though all your neigh- 
bours, all your friends, all your family, be in ignorance 
of the Saviour, and unable to help you, or in enmity to 
him, and unwilling to do so, rather than you should miss 
your way to the Lord of your salvation, or " your feet 
should stumble upon the dark mountains,"* God himself 
will lead you by a way which you know not ; sometimes 
simply by the secondary means which abound within 
the reach of all, sometimes by the more especial aids 
and influences of his Divine Spirit; but whatever be the 
method, and this will vary according to your need, and 
according to his unerring wisdom, lead you, yea con- 
stantly, surely, and at last triumphantly, he most un- 
questionably will, even though it were necessary to 

* Jeremiah xiii. 16. 



LECTURE III. 47 

create a new star for your guidance, until he has 
planted your trembling feet in safety upon the Rock of 
your salvation. 

Thus did Jehovah now act towards the wise men of 
whom we are speaking. No sooner had they left Jeru- 
salem, than the star, which had disappeared while they 
were among the habitations and haunts of men, the 
supernatural aid ceasing while natural aid was sujffii- 
cient, now re-appeared, and " went before them, until 
it came and stood over where the young child was ;" 
and " when they saw the star" — it is the beautiful 
addition of the evangelist — " they rejoiced with exceed- 
ing great joy."* How readily can we enter into these 
feelings, how fully understand the heartfelt pleasure, 
which that safest, surest guide, dropt as it were from 
the hand of God himself, to be a light to their feet and a 
lantern to their paths, must have awakened. Something 
not wholly dissimilar to this is the feeling with which 
the inquiring soul, after wandering with much of dark- 
ness, much of separation from God, during the week, 
hails with delight the day which God has sanctified and 
blessed. On that hallowed day, while waiting upon God 
in his temple, and hearing of the pardoning love and 
abounding mercy of the Saviour — of all that can be 
told, alas! how little, of him who is "the chiefest among 
ten thousand,"! that inquiring soul is, as it were, gazing 
upon the star which leads to Jesus. You, therefore, 
who know experimentally the happiness and the blessed- 
ness of the feeblest means which bring you .nearer to 
your Lord, will readily conceive the meaning of the 
declaration, " When they saw the star they rejoiced 
with exceeding great joy." 

* Matthew ii. 9, 10. t Canticles v. 10. 



48 LECTURE III. 

And now the Magi had arrived at the long-looked-for 
dwelling, surprised, we may well imagine, that so bright 
a star should set in so lowly a hemisphere: and yet, 
strong in faith, no sooner did they find the young child, 
than they " fell down and worshipped him ; and when 
they had opened their treasures, they presented unto 
him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh,"^ 

All uninstructed as these Gentile strangers were, how 
well had they learnt the character of him whom now, 
for the first time, they approached. They began by oflfer- 
ing, as a freewill offering, them.selves, and then ventured 
to lay at his feet their treasures, which, costly as they 
were, were in comparison of themselves but li-ttle worth. 
Many have been the fanciful interpretations which have 
been affixed to these wise men's gifts; the myrrh — 
because he to whom they offered them was a man, and 
myrrh was used in embalming, and therefore well 
marked mortality. The gold — to testify that he was a 
king ; gold being a regal offering. The frankincense — 
to demonstrate that they acknowledged him to be a 
Gbd ; incense having been in all Eastern nations an 
accompaniment of divine worship. These, perhaps, 
are the most plausible of the many interpretations 
which have been oflered ; but the natural and unexcep- 
tional method of accounting for these gifts, is simply 
that they were the produce of the country from which 
the wise men came ; and as in the East, men never 
approach a superior without a present, they marked the 
sense of the Magi with respect to the kingly pretensions 
of the Messiah, and were not only permitted, but ap- 
pointed by God, to afford a suitable supply for the 
necessities of the holy family. 

* Matthew ii. 11. 



LECTURE III. 49 

Are there none who hear me who are half inchned 
to envy the lot of those who were permitted to enjoy so 
high an honour, as to bring an acceptable offering to 
the infant Saviour ? none who are inwardly saying at 
this moment, there is nothing which I possess that I 
should consider to be too great, too good, too rich to 
offer to my Lord ; but I have nothing which he would 
not from his soul abhor, for all is polluted, worthless, 
and insignificant ! " my best is nothing worth ?" 

Brethren, we are permitted, nay encouraged, to say 
even to the most sinful among you, you have that to 
offer which far surpasses the most splendid present of 
gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. You have that 
which the Saviour will certainly condescend to receive, 
for he has condescended to ask for it, when he said, 
** My son, give me thy heart ;"* yea, he has conde- 
scended to die for it, when he *'laid down his life for 
the sheep." Carry him this offering, bring him this poor, 
polluted gift, a heart stained with sin, a broken, contrite, 
and yet a believing heart, and at the moment you make 
him that worthless present, there will be joy among the 
angels of God, there will be notes of thanksgivings and 
praise throughout the mansions of eternity, which all 
the gold of Arabia could not have produced. O, then, 
how countless in the sight of God must be the value of 
one sinner's soul ! of one poor broken heart ! 

While the wise men were passing through Jerusalem, 
Herod had desired that when they had found the new- 
born King they should bring him word again, that he 
might go and worship him also. This it pleased the 
Almighty to counteract, by directing the Magi not to 

* Proverbs xxiii. 26. 
5 



50 LECTURE III. 

return to Herod ; while, at the same time, the omniscient 
Jehovah, foreseeing what would be the conduct of the 
king, desired Joseph to take the young child and his 
mother, and to flee into Egypt. No sooner had the 
holy family thus providentially removed into a place of 
safety, than the wrath of Herod manifested itself by the 
destruction of all the infants " from two years old and 
under,"* who were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts 
thereof. 

To dwell upon this dreadful incident would carry us 
too far away from the more immediate subject of our 
history; it may be, however, as well to remark, that 
instead of the fable of fourteen thousand children having 
been thus destroyed, which appears to have been an 
early tradition in the Church, it is probable, from the 
population of Bethlehem and the coasts thereof, that 
not more than fifty could have been thus inhumanly 
sacrificed. A number fearfully large, indeed, when we 
consider the agonized parents and wretched families of 
these murdered little ones ; and still more so, when we 
think of the awful weight of guilt accumulated upon the 
soul of the wretched Herod, who shortly after this deed 
of blood, closed a fife of unusual depravity by a death 
of no common horror. 

When this event had taken place, the Almighty re- 
called the holy family from Egypt, and they " dwelt,'' 
says the inspired historian, "in a city named Nazareth,"f 
" And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled 
with wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon him."J 

After this period, the only incident which has been 
recorded during the childhood of our Lord, is, that at 

* Matthew ii. 16. t Matthew ii. 23. t Luke ii. 40. 



LECTURE III. 51 

twelve years of age, when he went up with his parents 
to Jerusalem at the feast of Passover, he tarried behind, 
unknown to them, in the holy city, after they had left 
it, upon their return home. Travelling, as men have 
always done in those eastern countries, in caravans, 
where many families are united, the parents of Jesus 
journeyed during a whole day without discovering their 
loss; and then, sorrowing and disconsolate, they retrace 
their weary steps to Jerusalem. There, after three 
anxious days of soHcitude and search, they find the 
holy child Jesus, '' in the temple, sitting in the midst of 
the doctors, both hearing them and asking them ques- 
tions,"* affording so wonderful a display of his divine 
knowledge, that " all who heard him," even the most 
learned doctors of the Sanhedrim, "were astonished at 
his understanding and answers."f 

Now for the first time do we hear his mother's voice; 
she who had kept all the former incidents which shed a 
ray of glory upon his infancy, and had "pondered them" 
prayerfully and silently " in her heart,"J could not re- 
strain the feeling of pain and anguish which his tempo- 
rary loss had inflicted upon a mother's heart. What 
was it to her that he was exciting the astonishment of 
the assembled Sanhedrim — that he was speaking as 
never child before had spoken — she w^ould far rather 
that he had been running at her side in all the harmless 
glee of happy childhood, and gladdening the eyes of 
his fond parents, than attracting the applause of the 
wisest sages in the world. Yet how meekly, how ten- 
derly, does she address herself to her supernatural child, 
as if she felt, while asserting a parent's authority, she 
was trenching upon some high, though undefined pre- 

* Luke ii. 46. t Luke ii. 47. X Luke ii. 19 



52 LECTURE III. 

rogative, — " Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us ? 
behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. 
And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me ? 
wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"* 
— words which, although in after days as clear as light 
itself, were now so dark, so unintelligible, that the evan- 
geUst expressly adds, " They understood not the saying 
which he spake unto them."f They knew not yet the 
wonderful relationship in which the boy of twelve years 
old stood to the awful Being who inhabiteth eternity ; 
they knew not the manner in which the child before 
them was filled " without measure" with his Spirit whose 
goings forth were from everlasting ; that his Father, to 
whose business he was now called, was the Father of 
the universe, the Father of time, yea, the Father of eter- 
nity, and of heaven itself; and that he, that wonderful 
and blessed child, could truly say, " Before Abraham 
was I am."J But though they might not comprehend 
his present words, well did they understand and appre- 
ciate his after conduct, — " He went down with them, 
and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." 
How peculiarly striking is this subsequent conduct of 
our Lord, when viewed in connexion with his own 
declaration, that he, " must be about his Father's 
business ;" and what a lesson does it bequeath to us ! 
Surely that Spirit who never indites one line to gratify 
curiosity, one word to satisfy even what we might 
imagine a natural inquiry, never would have mentioned 
this simple fact, were it not to encourage filial obedience 
under the new dispensation, by the example of our Lord, 
as it had been before encouraged under the old, by the 
promise of our God. " Honour thy father and thy 

* Luke ii. 48, 49. t Luke ii 50. t John viii. 58. 



LECTURE III. 53 

mother, which is the first commandment with promise." 
It is painful at the present day, to see in all classes, how 
often both the command and the example are alike ne- 
glected. Go into the cottage of the poor, and there be- 
hold the self-willed children, unrestrained even by the 
appearance of parental authority, beyond the hasty blow, 
or the harsh, unkind, and unholy word ; see them soon 
outgrowing the momentary effects of such poor substi- 
tutes for a high religious principle, looking and acting 
defiance, where there ought to be only obedience and 
submission. Go into the palace of the rich and you 
will find no change, except in the tinselled gloss which 
courtesy can throw even over opposition the most deter- 
mined, and insubordination the most complete. We 
need not scruple to affirm, because every day is more 
entirely establishing the fact, that the habit of disobe- 
dience to all constituted authorities, which is so widely 
spreading in this country, and which will at no very 
distant period, unless God of his mercy interfere, not 
only loosen the bonds of society, but as with an iron 
hand break them into ten thousand fragments, has been 
born, and bred, and nurtured within our domestic walls, 
and at our own firesides. Yes, it is the self-willed, dis- 
obedient child,, never from earliest infancy subjected 
upon principle to; a steady obedience to the parents' 
word and command, who becomes in after life the vio- 
lent opponent to all the constituted authorities of man, 
and, not unfrequently, the rebellious subject of God. 
Think not then, my younger brethren, that you are ad- 
vancing in reHgious knowledge, or in spiritual attain- 
ment, if you are refusing to render honour where honour 
is due, and where God commands you to pay it, even 
to your earthly parents ; or if you are unkindly and un- 

5#' 



54 LECTURE III. 

gratefully, I might add unholily, throwing off your sub- 
jection to them. As the ungrateful man has well been 
said to possess but one crime, for all others are but as 
virtues in him, so the undutiful child possesses but one 
sin ; but that one sin is like the one plague spot of an- 
tiquity, which spread, and widened, and festered, and 
destroyed, until, from the top of the head to the sole of 
the foot, all was disease, corruption, and decay. 

And to you. Christian parents, I would offer an affec- 
tionate admonition. If the tide which has now set in 
against the powers which are ordained of God for the 
preservation and comfort of society, can be stemmed, 
I believe, however paradoxical it may appear, that it 
must be stemmed in the nursery ; that it is to be done 
by the early implantation of the most decided habits of 
obedience in the hearts of your children, an obedience 
founded in love, and regulated by filial fear, and con- 
sistent with the truest and tenderest affection. It is by 
teaching them to be subject to you,, as God's represen- 
tatives to them, that the great principle of Christian 
subjection can alone be implanted, without a return to 
which, it requires no prophetic eye to see, no prophet's 
voice to declare, that our days as a sober-minded, obe- 
dient. Christian nation, are numbered ; that the most 
valuable institutions which the world has ever seen, will 
be like the vine of Israel, trampled beneath the feet of 
the w^ild boar of the forest ; we ourselves, with suicidal 
hand, having torn up her hedges and levelled her walls, 
and encouraged the marauder to come in. 

The fact of our Lord's subjection to his earthly pa- 
rents, is the only circumstance which any of the evan- 
geUsts have recorded from the twelfth to the thirtieth 
year of the life of Jesus. We have, therefore, eighteen 



LECTURE III. . 55 

years of our Lord's mortal sojourn during which not a 
single incident has been bequeathed to us ! 

How often in reading sacred history do we long for 
more minute details of the lives of the holy men which 
are there presented to us; and, if this be the case with 
regard to others, how much more ardently do we ex- 
perience it with respect to him who is now the subject 
of our meditations. We cannot but feel that every in- 
cident of the days of his boyhood, every transaction of 
his youth, every word and sentence of his matured man- 
hood, would have been a treasure to the Christian, for 
which he would readily have sacrificed the brightest 
volumes of Roman oratory, or of Grecian song. But 
God's ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our 
thoughts ; doubtless he has permitted all to be handed 
down to us which the necessities of the Church required, 
and we must await another day and another place for 
more. What time has concealed, eternity perhaps will 
tell ; but eternity itself will not be long enough to dis- 
close all the infinity of a Saviour's perfections, and of 
a Saviour's love. Still, as it is permitted to the Chris- 
tian to look forward even now, amidst the trials and 
troubles of earth, to that " rest which remaineth for the 
people of God," it cannot surely be wrong to anticipate 
those dehghtful moments when, dwelling in the bowers 
of light, and seated it maybe at the feet of the com- 
panions of our Lord's earthly pilgrimage, we may per- 
haps receive from their lips, or even from the lips of 
that Lord himself, many a passage in his earthly his- 
tory, full of interest, and instruction, and delight, which 
no pen has chronicled, but which shall rejoice our hearts, 
and swell our praises into louder and louder anthems to 
the glory of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and of 
the Lamb for ever and ever. ^ 



56 



LECTURE IV. 

St. Matthew iv. 3. 

" And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of 
God, command that these stones be made bread." 

We mentioned at the close of the last lecture, that 
holy Scripture observed a remarkable silence respecting 
eighteen years of the life of our blessed Lord. From 
the twelfth to the thirtieth year no single event is re- 
corde4, no observation made^ except that upon which 
we have already commented — our Lord's subjection to 
his earthly parents. 

It has been a tradition from time immemorial in the 
Church, that during these eighteen years the death of 
Joseph, the reputed father of our Lord, took place, and 
that Jesus himself maintained his mother during a por- 
tion of this time, by working at the trade of a carpenter. 
Both these circuaistances are rendered extremely pro- 
bable, from the internal evidence of the gospels ; the 
fact of our Lord himself working at his paternal trade 
receives great countenance from the appellation applied 
to him by the unbelievers in his own country, recorded 
in Mark vi. 3: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of 
Mary?" While the probability of his father's death 
may be gathered from his name not being mentioned or 
alluded to in this inquiry. Indeed, the certainty of his 
decease during some period of our Lord's life, seems to 



LECTURE IV. 57 

be established by the fact that Jesus, while on the cross, 
committed his mother to the beloved apostle ; which, 
had her husband been still living, would surely have 
been an unnecessary precaution. Mentioning these 
things merely as interesting probabilities, without at- 
tempting to insist upon their certainty, we pass on to 
the " more sure word of God,"* where all that is re- 
corded is, to the very letter, unquestionable and true. 

The first incident which is there narrated, after what 
is usually but improperly termed, our Lord's " disputa- 
tion in the temple," is his baptism ; the time of which is 
thus determined by St. Luke, " Jesus himself began to 
be about thirty years of age."f We shall quote the 
narrative of this wonderful event, as it is recorded by 
three of the evangelists, each supplying some minute 
circumstance which the other has omitted. 

" It came to pass in those days,J when all the people 
were baptized,§ that Jesus came from Nazareth of 
Galilee,|| to Jordan, unto John, to be baptized of him, 
but John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized 
of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus, answering, 
said, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to 
fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him; and he 
was baptized of John in Jordan."** 

This was, in all probability, the first time that the 
holy Baptist had ever seen his Lord and relative, Jesus. 
For it had pleased the providence of God that John 
should dwell in the wilderness, while our Lord abode 
in the resorts of men ; that thus, in after times, no col- 
lusion might even be suspected between them, and that 
the testimony of John to the Messiahship of Jesus might, 

* 2 Peter i. 19. t Luke iii. 23. | Mark i. 9. 

$ Luke iii. 2L II Mark i. 9. ** Matthew iii. 13. 



58 LECTURE IV. 

to his own disciples, be most satisfactory and conclusive. 
We find John's ignorance of our Lord expressly stated 
in the first chapter of St. John's gospel, where the Bap- 
tist declared, " I knew him not ; but he that sent me to 
baptize with water, the same said unto me. Upon whom 
thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on 
him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy 
Ghost."* 

Most natural was it, therefore, for the Baptist, know- 
ing that he who now ofiered himself for this holy rite 
was one " whose shoe's latchet he was not worthy to 
unloose,"! that "he was the Lamb of God which taketh 
away the sins of the world,"J — most natural was it 
for him to feel that Jesus had no need of such an ordi- 
nance as baptism, or that if he had, no mortal man 
was worthy to administer it. Therefore, " John forbade 
him !"§ Observe, brethren, in what widely diflferent 
channels nature and grace are for ever running. 

The holy Baptist, like the ardent and affectionate 
Peter, could agree to any thing more readily than to 
the supernatural humility and condescension of his 
Lord ; this, even the humble Baptist could not under- 
stand. How utterly unable are the holiest, humblest of 
the fallen sons of Adam, fully to appreciate, or even 
perfectly to conceive the perfections of their Lord ! 
Alas, then, brethren, at what an infinite distance must 
our imitation of his graces be, when even our imagina- 
tion and conception of them lag so far behind ! 

One blessed purpose will be fully answered by the 
history before us, if by such obvious truths as these, we 
are led more rightly, though still imperfectly, to know 

* John i. 33. t Luke iii. 16. John i. 27. 

t John i. 29. $ Matthew iii. 14. 



LECTURE IV. 59 

the length, and depth, and breadth, and height of the 
character of Christ, which passeth knowledge ; for 
every increasing ray of light which is thrown upon it, 
will tend, by God's grace, to humble us the more deeply 
as sinners, and to exalt the more highly our blessed and 
adorable Redeemer. 

In the instance before us, our Lord at once corrected 
the misapprehension of the Baptist by the single obser- 
vation, " Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us 
to fulfil all righteousness."* 

We are, perhaps, while reading the account of our 
Redeemer's baptism, very little, at first sight, aware of 
the pain and the degradation by which this fulfilment of 
righteousness was in the present instance accompanied. 
It is not as if John's baptism had been a rite acknow^- 
ledged and honoured by all the members of the Jewish 
church ; very far was this from being the fact ; the 
baptism of John was, although essentially of God, de- 
spised and rejected by all those (a very large and influ- 
ential body) who followed only their own traditions; 
for we are told expressly by St. Luke, " The Pharisees 
and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against them- 
selves, being not baptized of him."f To form, there- 
fore, any adequate idea of this instance of the humiHty 
of the blessed Jesus, we must behold him coming down 
to the banks of Jordan, undistinguished from his fellow- 
men, following the publicans and harlots, who were 
crowding to the water's edge, confessing their sins, and 
desiring to be renewed unto repentance. We may 
easily imagine the scornful and contemptuous bearing 
of the chief priests and elders who rejected John's bap- 

* Matthew iii. 15. t Luke vii. 30. 



eO LECTURE IV. 

tism, although they attended, from curiosity, upon his 
preaching ; the insulting ribaldry of the open and pre- 
sumptuous sinner, while the meek and lowly Jesus was 
approaching the water for the purpose of partaking of 
this despised ceremony. At once would he be stamped, 
for this very act, by all the class of persons of whom 
we have been speaking, as some poor degraded sinner, 
who, like the rest, had been deceived by the state- 
ments of the Baptist, and had come down to swell the 
crowd of fanatics and enthusiasts. And, brethren, do 
you think that these things carried with them no pang 
to the heart of Christ 1 Do you think that because he 
was removed, immeasurably removed, from every taint 
and capability of sin, he was equally far removed from 
the innocent infirmities of our nature ? No, be assured 
that he knew and felt — how often and how bitterly, 
during his earthly sojourn, did he know and feel them 
all. Else what means the language of prophecy, which 
represents every suflfering of Jesus as aggravated by 
those feelings which aggravate our own. " All they 
that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, 
they shake the head at me ;"* " shame hath covered my 
face."f This is the way in which the Psalmisc, speak- 
ing in the person of Christ, foretels his sufferings ; while 
many other instances will occur to your own minds, 
which will demonstrate that the feelings of our Lord 
were as certainly wounded by the ^^ despitefulness of the 
proud and the scornful reproof of the wealthy,"J as his 
side in after days was lacerated by the Roman spear. 
Bear these things in mind, and you will see that the 
baptism of Jesus was not one of the least bitter of the 

* Psalm xxii. 7. t Psalm xliv. 15. f Psalm cxxxiii. 4. 



LECTURE IV. 61 

ingredients in his most bitter cup. No ! at the very 
moment of thus entering upon his pubHc Hfe, he entered 
upon its penalties and its pains. He filled that cup on 
the banks of Jordan, which he never afterwards laid 
down until he had drained its very dregs : he there 
placed that cross upon his shoulders, which he bore, 
and bore contentedly, until he planted it as a tree of hfe 
upon the summit of Mount Calvary. 

" And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straight- 
way out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened 
unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending hke 
a dove, and lighting upon him : and lo, a voice from 
heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased."* 

Deep and grievous had been the humiliation of the 
only-begotten Son, and great and glorious was the testi- 
mony of the eternal Father. These things were so 
with a remarkable uniformity during every stage of our 
Redeemer's life. Never did he submit himself to more 
than ordinary degradation, that he did not receive more 
abundant honour. Was he, for instance, cradled in a 
manger, and did not Eastern princes, led by a new- 
made star, pay even there their adoration to him ? Was 
he, in after days, so troubled in spirit, as to manifest the 
timidity and weakness of our nature, in the cry, "Father, 
save me from this hour !"f and was it not at that hour 
that " a voice from heaven" spake unto him ? Did he, 
in the garden of Gethsemane, show more than common 
apprehension of his dreadful lot ; and was it not in that 
same garden that angels comforted him? So was it 
even now; the baptism of Jesus was one of the lowest 

* Matthew iii. 16. t John xii. 27, 28. 



62 LECTURE IV. 

points of his humiliation ; and the glory which followed 
it, perhaps without exception, "the most excellent glory"* 
of which he was partaker while on earth. For it was 
then that his heavenly Father honoured the opening 
ministry of the only begotten Son, by pouring down 
upon him, without measure, the anointing of the Holy 
Ghost; and by the glory of the Shechinah hovering 
over him, and by the voice from heaven publicly ac- 
knowledging him, demonstrated before all Israel, that 
the promise of God made unto their fathers was fulfilled, 
and that in the person of the carpenter of Nazareth, 
" God had visited his people."f 

Learn one lesson at least, brethren, before we leave 
the consideration of this important incident. Are you 
the followers of the Lord Jesus — are you his baptized 
and professing people — and are you slaves to the fear 
of man ? Do you shrink from duties, plain, unquestion- 
able duties, because your fellow-men, the great, or the 
rich, or the noble, look with no favourable eye upon 
them? Is this "the mind that was in Christ Jesus,"J 
when, that he might " fulfil all righteousness," he mingled 
with the crowd of common sinners, content to be mis- 
taken and misrepresented, and it might be ranked among 
them? Away with this false shame and dread of human 
censure ; never will you be enabled to " follow the Lamb 
whithersoever he goeth,"§ until by God's grace you are 
content to endure obloquy, reproach, and ridicule, while 
endeavouring to "fulfil all righteousness" which your 
heart approves; never will you be rendered meet to 
reign with Christ, until you are well content to suflTer 
with him. 

* 2 Peter i. 17. t Luke vii. 16. t Philippians ii. 5. $ Rev. xiv. 4. 



LECTURE IV. 63 

It is scarcely necessary to point out to you the well- 
known demonstration which the baptism of our Lord 
affords of the Holy Trinity; God the Holy Ghost made 
manifest " in a bodily shape like a dove ;"=^ God the Son 
ascending from the waters of Jordan in that body 
which had been prepared for him ; and God the Father, 
"whom no man hath seen or can see/'f manifesting 
himself by the voice from heaven ; the three persons 
but one God of the Christian Trinity, co-equal and 
co-eternal. Most blessed, glorious, and unquestionable 
truth ! the most important and all-pervading truth of the 
Bible ! Until you receive it, Christianity has not even 
effected an entrance into your mind. Until you are 
able, in a clear and scriptural manner, to appreciate the 
three distinct offices of the three distinct persons in the 
ever-blessed Trinity, Christianity has done but little for 
your soul. It then, and then only, has its perfect work 
within you, when you are enabled to have near access 
to God the Father, through the mediation of God the 
Son, and by the grace of God the Holy Ghost. When 
you acknowledge how the three persons in this glorious 
Godhead are engaged in the salvation of your soul, God 
the Father freely bestowing it upon you, God the Son 
as freely purchasing it for you, and God the Holy Ghost 
as freely applying it to you — each of the persons of the 
ever-blessed Trinity engaged in all the different parts of 
your salvation, and yet all the persons engaged in each 
— then do you comprehend as much of this high mystery 
as can be learnt on earth : the remainder you shall know 
hereafter. 

And now the incarnate Son, " being full of the Holy 

* Luke iii. 22. t 1 Timothy vi. 16. 



54 LECTURE IV. 

Ghost, returned from Jordan,"* spending, as it appears, 
not even a day with the blessed Baptist, but so intent to 
^'he about his Father's business,"f that he retired at 
once into the wilderness, under the guidance of the 
Spirit by which he was filled, to prepare himself by 
prayer, and fasting, and spiritual exercises, for the stu- 
pendous work he was commencing. For forty days did 
our Lord endure a wonderful and supernatural fast,J 
and ^* in those days he did eat nothing ;"§ while during 
the whole of the period he was tempted of the devil ; 
not, as we most certainly know, by any inward tempta- 
tion, by any even the remotest solicitation to evil from 
the inner man ; for did he not himself declare, ** The 
prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me,"|| 
and had not the word of God just pronounced that he 
was " full of the Holy Ghost,"** so full that no single 
thought or wish of evil could find an entrance into that 
pure and spotless mind? Therefore do we most cer- 
tainly know that there was no ^'lusting of the flesh 
against the Spirit,"ff no possible injection of any evil 
feeling or desire. All that the devil could do against 
such a heart as the heart of Jesus, was to propose 
external temptations, to show to the outward senses 
what in any other case might have captivated the mind, 
and eternally ruined the soul of the tempted ; but in the 
case of our Lord could gain not even a momentary 
access. Every attempt of Satan to inject a temptation 
there, must have been (if it be not a derogatory simile) 
Hke the attempt to thrust a lighted torch into the ex- 
hausted receiver of an air-pump ; the moment of its 



* Luke iv. L t Luke ii. 49. t Mark i. 13. § Luke iv. 2. 

II John xiv. 30. ** Luke iv. L tt Galatians v. 17. 



LECTURE IV. 65 

entrance would necessarily be the moment of its ex- 
tinction. 

When the forty days and forty nights were finished, 
our Lord " was afterward an hungered ;"* then com- 
menced the series of temptations which two of the 
evangelists have recorded for the benefit of the church 
and people of God, and from which we may gather the 
nature of those which are not recorded. 

" And when the tempter came to him, he said, If 
thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be 
made bread." 

It seems extremely probable that Satan was not, at 
the time of making the proposition before us, aware of 
the real dignity and divinity of our Lord. We do not 
know to what extent the power and the sagacity of that 
evil spirit extend, but we can deduce from Scripture 
that he is neither omniscient nor omnipresent, although 
he is able, probably from the incalculable number of his 
agents, to imitate both these attributes of Deity in such 
a manner, that man cannot detect the counterfeit. 

Satan, then, had certainly either himself^ or through 
some of his attendant spirits, heard the miraculous 
attestation to the Sonship of the Messiah vouchsafed 
from heaven at his baptism ; and he now approached 
him for the purpose of ascertaining his identity^ and 
sifting his pretensions, as well as, if possible, to lead 
him into sin, and thus ruin the scheme of man's re- 
demption. For had the second Adam once sinned, he 
could not have repaired the ruin of the first, because he 
could not have oflfered a perfect obedience and an un- 
blemished sacrifice. Satan begins by grounding the 

* Matthew iv. 2. 

6* 



66 LECTURE IV. 

temptation entirely upon the declaration of the heavenly 
voice, " This is my beloved Son ;" saying, " If thou be 
the Son of God, command this stone that it be made 
bread." " And Jesus answered him, saying, It is 
w^ritten that man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."* 
How remarkable an answer to flow from the lips of 
Jesus himself, the fountain of all wisdom and all know- 
ledge, — an answer from the written word of God. Had, 
then, our Lord no reply to the word of the tempter, 
which could be drawn from the infinite treasury of the 
eternal mind — no resources wdthin himself, from which 
to baffle and to overthrow the evil one? Yes, brethren, 
but then, whence would have been the example and the 
comfort to be derived by us, when we are called to con- 
flict with this great enemy ? Should we not have said, 
" The Saviour resisted Satan successfully, because he 
drew from the resources of his own infinite wisdom, 
but where shall I seek a weapon against such a foe ?" 
How encouraging, then, that we can answer, " From 
the same armoury in which your Lord sought and ; 
found one; from the written word of God!" There is j 
no temptation which can assail you, that may not, I 
God's grace assisting you, be met and vanquished by i 
" the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God."t 
The feeblest Christian among you, with that word in 
his hand and in his heart, is invincible. 

The text which our Lord here quotes is from the 
eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, and was addressed 
by Moses to the Israelites, when reminding them that 
though God had suffered them to hunger, he had fed 

* Luke iv. 4 ; Matthew iv. 4. t Ephesians vi. 17. 



LECTURE IV. 67 

them miraculously "with manna, to show that he had 
other methods of sustaining man than by bread alone. 
Our Lord's intention in quoting it seems to have been, 
to have put a firm and decisive negative upon the 
devil's proposition. Satan says, " You are an hun- 
gered, here are stones, w^hich, if you are the Son of 
God, you can transform into bread ; demonstrate your 
right to the title, therefore, by your acquiescence." Our 
Lord's reply infers, My Father of old sustained six 
hundred thousand persons for forty years without a 
single loaf of bread; I have been sustained for forty 
days without it ; I shall still rest as Mediator upon my 
Father's love, and upon my Father's power. Thus did 
he, who w^as shortly about to turn water into v^ine, re- 
fuse at Satan's bidding to turn stones into bread ! thus 
did he, who, in after times, to supply the exigencies of 
the multitude who had fasted three days, create bread 
for five thousand people, refuse, after fasting forty days 
himself, to create a single loaf to satisfy the tempter, 
or to supply his own pressing necessity. How blessed 
an example of the* infinite forbearance and self-denial, 
the meekness and wdsdom*, of him of whom we speak. 
He brings no raihng accusation against the destroyer ; 
he does not even vindicate his own questioned authority ; 
but committeth himself to him who judgeth righteously, 
knowing that "God will provide."^ My brethren, there 
is not a more frequent or a more successful temptation 
by which the spirit of evil endeavours to destroy your 
souls, than by tempting you, as he tempted the Re- 
deemer, first to distrust God's providential regard for 
you, and then to supply improperly your own neces- 

* Genesis xxii. 8. 



68 LECTURE IV. 

sities. When, for instance, your worldly calling is un- 
successful, when it appears to the eye of sense as if 
your heavenly Father, instead of bread, was giving you a 
stone ; withholding the needful supplies from yourself and 
family; then it is that Satan plies the heart most strongly 
with temptations such as these. " Turn your stones 
into bread ;" be not over-scrupulous as to the means, 
where the end is so obviously necessary and unexcep- 
tionable. You must be fed ; a trifling act of dishonesty, 
a mere overcharge, a little overreaching, or equivoca- 
tion, a short measure, an unjust balance, or even a little 
i Sunday trafficking, will do all that is needful; and 
^ surely, if you are a child of God, your heavenly Father 
will not be offended at such a trifling act of disobe- 
dience for so pressing a necessity. At seasons such as 

I these, brethren, remember the answer of your Lord, 

1^ '' Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Bread 
alone, without God's blessing, cannot nourish you, while 
with God's blessing, the want even of bread itself cannot 
starve you. " God will provide ;"*• if " he feedeth the 
young ravens which call upon him,"f " shall he not 
much more feed you, O, ye of little faith."J Yes, truly, 
even in regard to temporal things, you " shall want no 

r -^ ^ manner of thing that is good,"§ for so has his immutable 
t*a promise declared, and so will his parental love abun- 
^ dantly fulfil. If you seek first the kingdom of God and 

'^ ^ his righteousness, his word is pledged to you that "your 

^ bread shall be given you, and that your water shall be 

I ^ sure."|| 

I And as in temporal, so in things spiritual and eternal. 

* Genesis xxii. 8. t Psalm cxlvii. 9. } Matthew vi. 30 ; Luke xii. 28. 
$ Psalm xxxiv. 10. H Isaiah xxxiii. 16. 



LECTURE IV. 69 

Is your mind enfeebled by anxiety, or your body weak- 
ened by disease, then is it that your spiritual enemy 
urges the most distressing doubts of the love of your 
heavenly Father to you, or of your relationship to him. 
These are then often his suggestions, — If thou wert a 
child of God, would it be thus with thee ? would there 
be such coldness of affection, such wandering thoughts, 
such poor, and rare, and transitory glimpses, of a 
Father's love ] If thou be a son of God, cast off this 
sadness, remove this spiritual famine of the soul, esta- 
blish your right to the blessed title, and act for your- 
self. Precisely the same rebellious suggestions which 
he offered to our Lord, — Help yourself, since your 
Father refuses to help you. In hours like these, (and 
where is the true child of God who has never known 
them?) take refuge in the written word, lie down in 
peace on many a blessed promise ; reply to the tempter, 
that though God withhold for a time the spiritual bread 
which strengthens and the wine which cheers, " man 
does not live by bread alone, but by every word which 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God,"* and that you 
have enough, and more than enough, in that blessed 
word to subsist upon, until God shall again comfort you 
with the light of his countenance and the fulness of his 
blessing. Trust as simply and entirely to God, during 
the famine of the soul, as your blessed Redeemer did in 
the famine of the body ; and in the darkest hours and 
most trying deprivations, say of spiritual things as the 
prophet Habakkuk said of temporal things, " Though 
the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in 
the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the field 

* Deuteronomy viii. 3. 



70 LECTURE IV. 

shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off* from the 
fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls ; yet I will 
rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my sal- 
vation."^ 

The powers of darkness cannot make head against 
feelings such as these; they are not walls of untempered 
mortar, but impregnable ramparts thrown up by the 
Spirit of God himself; and though Satan with all his 
hosts may sit down before the fortress, yet so resisted, 
he shall flee from it, and in the end you shall be more 
than conquerors, through him that loveth you. 

t Habakkuk iii. 17. 



71 



LECTURE V. 

St. Matthew iv. 8, 9. 

** Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 
and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory 
of them, and saith unto him. All these things will I give thee, 
if thou wilt fall down and worship me." 

Ipf the last lecture we reviewed the first of the three 
temptations to which our blessed Lord was subjected 
at the close of his miraculous fast in the wilderness. 
We left the history at that point where, by quoting a 
passage from the written word of God, the Saviour had 
silenced the tempter. Satan, however, determining not 
to be thus easily foiled, resolved upon making another 
effort. For this purpose, he carries our Lord out of the 
wilderness, and " taketh him up into the holy city, and 
setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple."* Satan had 
seen in the first temptation, that the dependence of 
Jesus upon God was unlimited ; that even at the risk of 
starving, he had refused to change stones into bread, 
so entirely confident was he that his heavenly Father 
possessed both the power and the will to supply him. 
Imagining that now he had discovered the weak point 
of the Messiah's character — that he possessed more 
love than prudence, more zeal than wisdom, more 
ardour than discretion-— Satan arranges his new temp- 

* Matthew iv. 5. 



72 LECTURE V. 

tation accordingly; and having placed him upon this 
high and dizzy elevationj the extremest point of the 
temple, " he saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, 
cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his 
angels charge over thee to keep thee;"^ he does not 
add, as the Psalmist from whom he quotes the verse 
has added, " to keep thee in all thy ways"f — all the 
ways which God had appointed him to walk in — for 
this did not suit the devil's purpose ; he, therefore, 
misquotes the passage as if it were a general promise 
of safety in all ways, whether ways of duty, or ways 
of folly and of sin ; and " in their hands they shall bear 
thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a 
stone."J As if he had said. You were wilhng to trust 
God for your food, although he must have worked a 
miracle to supply that food; now show that you can 
trust Him equally for your safety ; throw yourself > 
boldly over into the courts of the temple, and there, 
amidst its thousand worshippers, proclaim by this act 
at once the strength of your faith, the completeness of 
your dependence, and the reality of your Sonship ; thus 
tempting our Lord, as it were, by the very excess of 
that Christian grace which he had before so beautifully 
exhibited. Observe, then, the consummate wisdom and 
holy meekness of our Lord's reply, — "Jesus answering, 
said unto him. It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt 
the Lord thy God."§ 

He who, as we have seen, could trust God with all 
the confidence with which a child can trust the most 
affectionate father while in the plain and obvious path 
of duty, and therefore would not help himself super- 

* Matthew iv. 6. t Psalm xci, 11. t Psalm xci. 12. $ Matthew iv. 7. 



LECTURE V. 73 

naturally even to a loaf of bread, but left it to God to 
help him, now would not, for the sake of appearing 
more abundantly to trust him, incur danger where no 
duty called; and therefore refused to lift a foot from 
off that pinnacle at Satan's bidding. How valuable a 
lesson to the Christian ! You cannot trust God too 
simply or too exclusively, or too largely, when in the 
assured path of Christian duty. If the ocean itself 
lay before you, you might boldly advance; for God 
would sooner divide the sea for you, as he did for 
Israel, or harden it into a solid pavement as he did for 
Peter, than that it should impede your progress to the 
promised land, or hinder you from going to Jesus. But, 
if it lie not in the path of duty, expect no miracle, look 
for no help from GoS ; that same sea would be to you, 
if you dared to enter it, as it was to the Egyptians, a 
destroyer and a grave. 

Mark well, my brethren, the difference thus exhibited 
between faith and presumption. To expect the largest 
degrees of help from God when plainly following a 
direct command, is only a justifiable exercise of faith ; 
to expect even the smallest when contrarily engaged, 
is an unwarrantable act of presumption. Bearing this 
distinction in mind, how obviously does it mark the 
separation between the enthusiast and the sober-minded 
child of God. An enthusiast would have been delighted 
with such an opportunity of evincing his unbounded de- 
pendence upon God ; and had Satan presented him with 
the temptation with which he tried our Lord, would 
have sprung from the pinnacle, and have been dashed 
to pieces. The wise and sober-minded child of God 
would have seen that the call of Satan was not a call of 
duty — that the promise of protection, misquoted by the 

7 



74 LECTURE V. 

devil, contemplated no such acts as these, and offered 
no protection for them; and would, therefore, as his 
divine Master did, have descended by the stairs, and 
have been safe. It is at the present time, brethren, 
especially desirable to attend to these distinctions ; for 
while the people of the world are disposed to treat all 
simple child-hke faith in God, as mere presumption, a 
large party in the church are equally disposed to mis- 
take the wildest flights of presumption, only for higher 
degrees of acceptable faith; forgetting that true and 
scriptural faith can never travel beyond the record of 
God's promises, and that the moment faith terminates 
presumption begins. 

We cannot leave this second temptation of our Lord, 
without endeavouring to derive from it a lesson of en- 
couragement, as well as of instruction. 

Take comfort then, brethren, from the assurance 
which it oflfers, that the power of Satan is limited, far 
more limited than many at the present day are apt to 
imagine. Can we suppose that if Satan had possessed 
the power to have compelled our Lord to cast himself 
headlong from the pinnacle, that he would have been 
content merely to have tempted him to do so? Assuredly 
not ; nor was the inability of the tempter to be more 
than a tempter, Hmited to his attacks upon bur Lord; 
for all scripture declares that his power is equally limited 
to every human being whose faith hath made him the 
child of God ; he cannot compel the weakest follower 
of Jesus into the smallest sin. He may entice you, 
beguile you, delude you, but compel he cannot. He 
must have the consent of your own will, the aid of your 
own inclination, before he can possibly succeed. He 
may, indeed, have power to place you, without any 



LECTURE V. 75 

fault or crime of yours, as he placed Joseph of old, upon 
the very brink of sin, upon the extremest verge of the 
precipice of temptation ; but there he has reached the 
length of his chain, and can advance no farther; there, 
even on the topmost pinnacle of danger, one fervent 
heartfelt cry to God, "Lord help me"* — one faithful 
appeal to the written word, " How can I do this great 
wickedness and sin against God l^f — one look to him 
for succour, who was himself tempted, that he might be 
able to succour them that are tempted, "looking unto 
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," J and you 
are safe. 

Satan, however, had not yet finished his infatuated 
enterprise. Silenced, as he was the second time, by the 
unanswerable appeal of our Lord to the word of God, 
he had yet one arrow remaining in his quiver, the 
strongest, fleetest, and most deadly of them all. He 
had tried the Saviour, in the hope of finding some de- 
fect in his love to God, some flaw in his dependence 
upon his care, but all in vain. He had tried him again, 
in the hope, that as he had found an infinity of depen- 
dence, he might at least discover one grain of presump- 
tion, but still in vain. " The prince of this world came, 
but had nothing in Jesus."§ The second Adam stood, 
where the first had fallen, and all the wiles of the 
deceiver were in vain. Satan, however, although con- 
quered, was still unwearied, and returns again to the 
charge, but now bringing with him a temptation which, 
since time began, has seldom failed ; the world's pomp, 
the world's luxuries, the world's glories. " Again," say 
the inspired historians, " the devil taketh him up into an 
exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the 

* Matt. XV. 25. t Gen. xxxix. 9. | Heb. xii. 2. $ John xiv. 30. 



76 LECTURE V. 

kingdoms of the world and the glory of thenn in a mo- 
ment of time." Spreading before the eyes of our Lord, 
as it were upon a map, one vast and splendid picture, 
not only of all the empires of the globe, but of all their 
glories; all of nature's beauty and of art's magnifi- 
cence ; all of pomp, and luxury, and splendour, which 
the eye of man has ever seen, or the imagination of 
man conceived, were crowded into that stupendous 
vision. 

The arch deceiver, the master painter of sensuality, 
he who so well knows how to paint a carnal picture for 
a carnal heart, no doubt portrayed the perishable joys 
of earth in their most glowing colours, with all the 
bright but transitory hues which sparkle over them ; 
while he as carefully drew a thick, and, to the eye of 
man, impenetrable veil across the misery and the wretch- 
edness, the heartburnings and the jealousies, the disap- 
pointments and the treacheries, which lie beneath. 

To the view of sense, and to the worldly apprehen- 
sion, it must have been a gorgeous vision, but to the eye 
of Jesus, of him whose world the globe on which we 
dwell most surely is, who had beheld it in its days of 
innocency, when no cries of sin were rising from the 
thousand altars of the everlasting hills, and no tears; of 
suffering were mingling with its eternal oceans, surely 
the whitened charnel-house, the painted sepulchre, could 
not have been a less enticing or a more repulsive object. 
Little could the tempter have conceived the feelings 
which were kindling in that pure and spotless breast, 
while he was dwelHng, as he doubtless did, upon all the 
value and the magnificence of the bribe which he was 
proffering : " All these things will I give thee,* all this 

* Matthew iv. 9. 



LECTURE V. 77 

power will I give thee and the glory of them; for 
that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I 
give it."* 

Base and miserable deceiver! a liar, and as Jesus 
himself denominated him, " the father of lies,"f With 
a lie he had ruined the first Adam, " Ye shall not surely 
die ;"J and with the same barefaced departure from 
truth, did he now attempt to ruin the second. Satan's 
world! No, before time began, that world had been 
made over in an everlasting covenant never to be for- 
gotten, to the incarnate Son ; '^ Thou shalt have the 
heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
the earth for thy possession."§ Fallen, degraded though 
it be, there is but one dark corner of it which can with 
truth be called the world of Satan, and that — the im- 
penitent sinner's heart; there, indeed, he dwells, and 
revels, and commands, but even there, in that his only 
fortress, blessed be God, a stronger than he is often 
present, who binds the strong man, and casts him forth, 
and takes possession in the name of the Most High ; 
and when the enemy attempts to return like a flood, lifts 
up a standard against him. All else upon the wide 
world's surface, though " cursed for man's sake,"|| has 
ever been, and ever shall be, the purchased possession 
of the Messiah of God ; subject, indeed, for a time, to 
the prevalency of sin, and vanity, and sorrow, but de- 
scribed in a strong metaphor of the apostle, as groaning 
and travaiUng in pain to be delivered from the bondage 
of corruption, and panting to be a participator in the 
glorious liberty of the children of God. While even of 
its power and glory, which Satan so expressly claimed, 

* Luke iv. 6. t John viii. 44. X Genesis iii. 4. 

$ Psalm ii. 8. || Genesis iii. 17. 

7* 



78 LECTURE V. 

and over which he no doubt strews his poison far more 
thickly than over any other portion of the Lord's vine- 
yard, yet even of these poor substitutes for better and 
more enduring possessions, has not the word of God 
declared, " The Most High alone ruleth in the kingdom 
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will?'* Mise- 
rable indeed would be the feelings of the Christian, 
especially in the days in which we live, if the wild con- 
vulsions of the moral world, or the vast and hourly 
changes of the political world, were to be regarded as 
the mere pastime of this bad and reckless spirit; if, 
instead of believing with the apostle that " the powers 
which be are ordained of God,"f we were for a moment 
to credit the lying declaration of Satan, that the powders 
which be are ordained of the devil. But, blessed be God, 
we know the fallacy of such an assertion ; we know 
that not a change takes place, not a sparrow falls with- 
out our Father ; and that the worst of this world's vicis- 
situdes are ruled or overruled by him that loveth us, 
and are brought by his almighty power among the " all 
things" which shall work together for the temporal, the 
spiritual, the eternal good of every child in his redeemed 
and ransomed family. 

But, brethren, what anguish, what a degree of mental 
suffering, must this temptation have wrought in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, when his eye pierced through that 
beauteous picture of " all the kingdoms of the world 
and the glories of them,^' and looked down into the 
hideous depths of sin beneath. Surely never, but in 
Gethsemane, could our beloved Redeemer have feh more 
deeply, more acutely, the agony of a ruined world, the 

* Daniel iv. 17. t Romans xiii. 1. 



LECTURE V. 79 

infinite weight of the sins which he came to bear, the 
sorrows which he came to carry, than while gazing 
upon that sad and fearful vision. Had the Saviour of 
mankind required one feehng to brace his resolution, to 
arm him with tenfold strength against the tempter, the 
sight of all the splendid misery lying at his feet, the 
presence of that guilty and wretched being, its parent 
and its cause, standing at his side, would most abun- 
dantly have supplied it. But when to this we add the 
horrible proposition which succeeded it, " All these 
things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and w^ar- 
ship me,"* words cannot describe our feeHngs at the 
reckless audacity of that fallen spirit. The meekest 
man who ever lived would have been sorely tempted at 
such a moment to speak " unadvisedly with his lips ;" 
none but the incarnate Son of God himself could have 
come clear from such a trial, ruffled by no word of 
passion, tainted by no feeling of sinful animosity. We 
know not whether meekness, dignity, or power, predo- 
minate in his reply — " Get thee behind me, Satan^ for it 
is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and 
him only shalt thou serve."f 

Then did the devil practically learn the truth which 
he appears so anxiously to have sought, viz. w^hether 
the son of the carpenter of Nazareth were the son of 
the living God. Banished thus by a single word, hum- 
bled and debased from the presence of his eternal Con- 
queror, he learnt that the second Adam would assuredly 
repair the ruin of the first, would bruise the serpent's 
head ; and that the Lord Jesus Christ in that meek and 
lowly guise was as much his superior, as completely 

* Matthew iv. 9. t Luke iv. 8. 



80 LECTURE V. 

his conqueror, as when seated upon his Father's throne, 
and crowned with nnany crowns, he had, before time 
began, driven " Satan hke Ughtning"* from his " first 
estate," and committed him to " the blackness of dark- 
ness for ever."f 

And now, brethren, let us gather something more 
entirely and exclusively for ourselves from this won- 
drous story. Think you that this was the last time that 
Satan has striven to urge the same temptation with the 
same falsehood? the last time he has pressed the worship 
of himself, by proffering the wealth, and power, and 
glory of the world ? Would to God that it were. But 
what then is that evil spirit now doing around us and 
within us ? Is he not still holding forth the same temp- 
tation and the self-same bribe ? With what does Satan 
still gild the bait with which he lures his victims to 
their ruin ? Is it not with the power and glory, the 
wealth and vanity, of the world 1 Are not these the 
baubles with which he tempts the rich, the noble, and 
the great ? And are they not still the most attractive 
features in the dazzling vision which he spreads before 
the eyes of men of every deg;ree and order in society, 
to win them to himself? Is there that man living, so 
high, so immeasurably advanced, in this world's goods, 
as to be above the solicitation to place his foot but one 
step higher on the eminence of worldly dignity, to gain, 
as it were, but one more handful of that indefinable, that 
baseless vision, for which men are content to sacrifice 
their time, their eternity, their lives, their souls? Is 
there that man living, so low, so depressed in the scale 
of society, as to be beneath the same temptation, when 

* Luke X. 18. t Jude vi. 13. 



LECTURE V. 81 

modified, as the devil well knows how to modify it, to 
each man's peculiar disposition, and temper, and station, 
and wants'? It requires but Httle knowledge of the world 
to see that, ** All this will I give thee," is still the promise 
by which Satan acquires, one by one, throughout all 
time and all generations, his countless worshippers : the 
lying promise ! for Satan has nothing real, nothing sub- 
stantial to bestow; his brightest gifts are but what he 
spread before the feet of Jesus, a gilded vision, an unreal 
pageant, an empty show ; like those fair scenes of ver- 
dant pastures and cooKng streams, which Eastern tra- 
vellers, amidst their faintness and their thirst, see, or 
believe they see, while traversing the arid desert, but 
which for ever fly before them, and leave only the 
burning sand and suffocating dust. If such be the na- 
ture of the bribes which Satan offers, is it more difficult 
to tell the price at which he offers them I I might not 
dare to tell you that Satan never offers his rewards 
except at the price for which he offered them to our 
Lord, that you should fall down and worship him ; but 
what does experience tell you, as you ascend higher 
and higher up the giddy eminence, following the fleeting 
shadow of worldly power, and glory, and distinction, 
which for ever keeps in advance, always near, but 
always, hke the horizon, just beyond your reach, does 
the love of God, does spirituality of heart, does holiness 
of life increase within you ? Does fervency of faith, or 
warmth of affection to him whose name you bear, kindle 
yet brighter in your soul ? Alas ! does not every day's 
experience justify us in saying, that the very reverse of 
this is the fact, that the man who was humble and holy 
while in obscurity, becomes proud, and sensual, and 
time-serving as he advances. That every increase of 



82 LECTURE V. 

worldly power, and wealth, and splendour, brings with 
it, too often at least, an increase of indifference to the 
things of eternity, and to God's honour, and to God's 
will? And if so, what is there in the worship of 
Satan to which the men living only for this world are 
strangers? There is no need, while worshipping that 
subtle spirit, of building altars, and burning incense, and \ 
bending the knee, and outward and visible prostration 
of the body in his service. No, give him but the unseen 
heart, your thoughts, and your affections, and you may 
pay the outward worship, the lip service, to whom you 
will and where you will. For every prayer, distracted 
and deadened by feelings such as these, and thus stolen 
from the service of God, is really given to Satan ; every 
affection thus alienated from the love of God, is made 
over to Satan; every act of obedience thus wilfully re- 
fused to a command of God, is yielded to Satan ; every 
heart, therefore, not fully, freely, devotedly given to 
God, is, I do not say entirely, but just by so much, given 
to Satan. And then, brethren, if, as our Lord declares, 
** Ye cannot serve two masters, ye cannot serve really 
God and mammon ;"^ if you are even engaged in this 
partial service of Satan, whose will be your hearts on 
that day when the Son of Man makes up his jewels ?t 
God will reject the blemished offering, for he must have 
a whole heart or have none ; and Satan will claim that 
as his own, wholly and entirely, of which he now 
appears so well content to be considered only as the 
joint proprietor. How solemn a reflection for all, of 
whatever rank or station, who are conscious at this 
moment, of a divided empire within their breast, a 

* Matthew vi. 24. t See Malachi iii. 17. 



LECTURE V. 83 

divided worship in their hearts ! May the Spirit of God 
bless the consideration of it, to our full and complete 
acquiescence with his most merciful command, and 
most condescending request : " My son, give me thy 
heart ;"* that our hearts may be his only, and his en- 
tirely, and his for ever, for the Lord Jesus Christ's 
sake. 

^ * Proverbs xxiii. 26. 



84 



LECTURE VI. 



St. John i. 49. 



" Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son 
of God ; thou art the king of Israel." 

Satan having concluded the temptation of our Lord, 
and angels from heaven having ministered to his neces- 
sary wants, we find him immediately returning to Beth- 
abara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. 

The day that Jesus arrived, and while he was ap- 
proaching the spot occupied by the Baptist and his 
hearers, St. John announced his arrival to the assem- 
bled multitude, in these remarkable words: "Behold 
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world !"^ How simple, yet, to the heart of the true 
Israelite, how touching a testimony to the person and 
office of the Messiah ; " Behold the Lamb of God !" 
I need scarcely remind you that every morning, and 
every evening, throughout the year, a lamb was offered 
as a burnt-offering before the Lord for all the congrega- 
tion of Israel. Every pious and well-instructed Jew 
had been taught to consider that lamb as a type of the 
far more precious sacrifice which God would one day 
accept for the sins of the whole world. When, there- 
fore, the Baptist pointed out Jesus of Nazareth, as " the 

* John i. 29. 



LECTURE VI. 85 

Lamb of God,'^ he spake a language perfectly compre- 
hensible, adapted to the understanding and to the wants 
of all who heard him ; for all who believed the testi- 
mony of John, would know that in " the Lamb of God" 
they beheld their promised Messiah, " the Consolation 
of Israel."* We are not, therefore, surprised to find 
that upon John's repeating this testimony on the day 
following, two of his disciples immediately left him, and 
followed Jesus. In the Baptist they had no doubt found 
a teacher whom they reverenced and admired, but men 
want something more than this — they want something 
which they can fully, freely, safely love. There was a 
degree of harshness about the person and manners of 
the Baptist, very characteristic of his ministry, which^ 
though it must have commanded men's respect, does 
not seem peculiarly calculated to have drawn forth 
their affection ; but when they beheld Jesus, when they 
heard of him at once under so tender, so endearing a 
character as the *' Lamb of God," we can readily ima- 
gine that the first feelings of their hearts would be, to 
seek and follow him. And if there was a difference 
even in the manners of the teachers, how great was the 
difference in their dignity and power. He who was 
"least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than 
John,"f while Jesus was higher than the highest there ; 
John, at the best, was a mere preacher, who, while he 
preached remission of sins, could not bestow it ; Jesus 
"himself hath borne our griefs, and carried our sor- 
rows," J and was the very Paschal Lamb which " taketh 
away the sins of the world." In the first, the disciples 
found an instructor, but in the second, a Saviour ! If 
there were a desire in John's heart for which he was 

* Luke ii. 25. t Matthew xi. 11. t Isaiah liii. 4. 

8 



86 LECTURE VL 

really anxious, it must have been to have seen every 
disciple whom he loved, follov^ing Jesus. 

My brethren, if there be a desire in our hearts con- 
cerning you, it is identically the same ; that you should 
not content yourselves with human teachers, but should 
be led, through the instrumentality of their instructions, 
to follow him, the only Divine. This is our best, our 
highest reward, our most ardent desire on this side 
heaven, that you should see him whom John's disciples 
saw, and in the character in which they saw him, and 
with the same effect; beholding him as the " Lamb of 
God which taketh away" your sins, even yours, and from 
that hour, faithfully and perseveringly, closely following 
Jesus. Would that it might please our heavenly Father 
that we might more often enjoy this desire of our souls. 
It is indeed a blessing, and one which we would by no 
means undervalue, to behold the temple of our God 
filled with attentive worshippers ; but what is this, com- 
pared with the delight of knowing that but one poor 
sinner has really fled to the Saviour ; that one lost and 
ruined soul has found life, and peace, and eternal re- 
demption in him. O, brethren, if you stop short of this, 
all else is nothing; the hearing ear without the con- 
vinced and converted heart, is nothing worth. 

Our blessed Lord, whose omniscience told him that 
these disciples of John had left their master and were 
coming after him, and whose affectionate kindness could 
even in the days of his flesh suffer none to follow him 
in vain, immediately turned to meet them, and said unto 
them, " Whom seek yel They said unto him, Rabbi, 
where dwellest thou? He saith unto them. Come and 
see."* Attracted, as they well might be, by the frank- 

* John i. 38, 39. 



LECTURE VI. 87 

nessi and courtesy of such a reply ; and, doubtless, 
feeling by every moment of intercourse with such a 
being, their hearts drawing nearer to his ow^n, " They 
went and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that 
day, for it was about the tenth hour,"* i. e'. two hours 
before night. One of the disciples which thus followed 
Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. ^*He first 
findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him. We 
have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the 
Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.^f The other 
disciple, who accompanied Andrew, has usually been 
supposed to have been St. John. In the calling of these 
three humble followers commenced that little company, 
that weak and feeble band, which, under the directions 
and in the power of the Holy Ghost, regenerated the 
world. Men chosen from the lower walks of Hfe, with- 
out wealth, without learning, without much of talent 
either natural or acquired, and yet who succeeded in a 
few short years, to use the language of their opponents, 
in "turning the world upside down."J O, if these 
humble-minded men could have foreseen upon this first 
memorable evening, when they walked home with Jesus 
to his abode, and spent the night in heavenly intercourse, 
in hearing him dilate upon all the wonderful mysteries 
of his blessed gospel — if they could have foreseen the 
hour when they should " be brought before kings and 
rulers for his name's sake,"§ and brave the assembled 
Sanhedrim, and testify to him in the high places of the 
earth, and finally seal his doctrines with their blood, 
how would they have shrunk, alarmed and daunted, 
from the appalling undertaking. Happily for the world 

* John i. 40. t John i. 41. t Acts xvii. 6. $ Luke xiii. 9. 



88 LECTURE VI. 

and for the Church, they were permitted to possess no 
such fearful forebodings ; unconscious of the mighty 
destinies which hung upon that hour, the evening passed 
away in blissful intercourse, and while it sealed their 
fate, sealed also the fate of thousands who are now with 
them " shining as stars"* in their firmament of glory. 

Blessed be God, brethren, that what was in mercy 
hidden from them is not, in our own case, revealed to us ! 
I know not how it may be with others, but, as regards 
my own feelings and my own experience, I cannot but 
testify, that had I, when I first entered upon the duties 
of our holy office, been endowed with a prescience of 
its future responsibilities, and had I known and felt its 
trials and its difficulties, the weariness of spirit from 
efforts constantly making for the souls of others, and 
yet as constantly frustrated ; the disappointments from 
those who ^* did run well,"f but have turned back again 
to folly ; the fruitless labour for those ^' ever learning 
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth ;"J 
and above all, the deep and awful anxieties lest the 
blood of some untaught, unwarned, and unforgiven sin- 
ner should be required at our hands ;§ — I say, had these 
things been presented to me in the distant vision, unac- 
companied by the consolations which no eye but God's 
can see, and no hand but his can minister, I believe no 
earthly power, I fear no heavenly inducement, would 
have been sufficiently powerful to have placed me where 
I am. But, praised be the name of our God, he holds 
back the storm, and restrains the billows, and tempers 
the wind, until the vessel be fairly put to sea, and then, 
though the waters rage and the tempest roar, he who 

* Dan. xii. 3. t Galatians v. 7. f 2 Tim. iii. 7. $ Ezekiel iii. 18. 



LECTURE VI. 89 

has charged himself with her safety will never leave 
her, never forsake her, until she has ridden out the 
storm, and arrived at the " haven where she would be,"* 

The day following, our Lord, going into Galilee, 
called a fourth disciple, whose name was Philip, a fel- 
low-citizen with Andrew and Peter. Peter was, as we 
have seen, called by his own brother Andrew, as Na- 
thanael was afterwards called by Philip, but Philip was 
called by Christ himself, for the inspired historian says 
expressly, " The day following, Jesus would go into 
Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him. Follow 
me."f How various were the means by which this 
little party was assembled ! How various, will it appear 
hereafter, have been the means by which the countless 
multitude who will fill the everlasting mansions shall 
have been congregated ; one through the instrumentality 
of some dear relative, who prays^ and strives, and rea- 
sons, and invites, until he is blessed with the gift of his 
brother's soul ; another by the teaching of some spiritu- 
ally enlightened friend ; a third, by the more immediate, 
though not more undoubted operation of our Lord him- 
self, who "came to seek as well as to save them that 
are lost," and who speaks with power by his holy Spirit 
to the heart, and says^ " Follow me." Still, brethren, 
however varying be the means, the end and object of 
this blessed work are and must for ever be the same, 
the following Jesus here on earth, and the enjoying 
Jesus in the kingdom of his glory, 

" Philip," continues the inspired historian^ " findeth 
Nathanael^ and saith unto him. We have found him of 
Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of 

* Psalm cvii. 30. t John i, 4a 

8* 



90 LECTURE VI. 

Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto 
him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? 
Phihp saith unto him, Come and see."* The invitation 
of the Master re-echoed, and wisely re-echoed, by the 
servant. Nathanael, though " an Israelite without guile,"t 
was clearly not an Israelite without prejudice. Upon 
the very first hearing of the Messiah, his inquiry was 
not, What is het but. Whence is he? and no sooner 
was he told^ '^ of Nazareth," than the very name of the 
place aroused his inveterate prejudices, and he con- 
cluded, as the prophet Isaiah had foretold men should 
conclude, that there was " no beauty in him that they 
should desire him."J 

Such has ever been, such will ever be, the effect of 
prejudice. Is there any one feeling of the human mind 
so discreditable to its boasted enlargement, and at the 
same time so indiscriminately preyaiUng ? Is not a man 
without prejudice quite as difficult to be discovered as 
a man without guile ? It is truly wonderful, we will 
not say, in these days of rehgious improvement, though 
we trust that we might with truth so designate them, 
but even in these days of intellectual advancement, that 
prejudice should still possess so universal, so unaccount- 
able a sway; there is scarcely a subject, or a person, 
who does not suffer from its distorted vision and unjust 
decisions. Only for a moment mark its effects upon a 
single topic ; and although this will not remedy the evil, 
it will go far to convince you of its existence even in 
your own bosoms. Take, for example, some of the 
peculiar doctrines of divine grace. You do not under- 
stand them ; you do not affect to understand them ; you 

* John i. 45, 46. t John i. 47. t Isaiah liii. 2. 



LECTURE VI. 91 

have never devoted any one whole day throughout your 
hfe to endeavour to understand them ; you will not take 
the trouble to read, and to meditate, and to pray for 
further light ; you are content to rest upon an inward 
persuasion that they are false, although you have no 
real ground, no one single argument, to justify such a 
conclusion* And yet you scruple not to pronounce 
dogmatically upon them, " this is wild," " that is false," 
" this is inconsistent with God's goodness," " that is un- 
favourable to man's holiness." Surely it must make 
the very angels weep, to behold such unspeakable, such 
ruinous folly, in the poor, miserable, half-witted beings 
they look down upon. The word of God declares that 
the angels actually " desire to look"* into these things, 
which the prejudiced man most authoritatively decides 
upon, without looking into, and without even an effort 
or a wish to do so. Again, are you prejudiced not only 
against the doctrines, but against the people of God ? 
The same thing holds good ; every action they perform, 
every word they speak, is distorted and misrepresented ; 
you do not try them by the same rules as other men, 
you shut out all conviction, you will listen to nothing in 
their favour, you deny them even common justice, and 
a common hearing, and are as determined that nothing 
good shall proceed from those men, as Nathanael was 
that no good thing could come out of Nazareth. Hap- 
pily for Nathanael, he had a friend too wise to argue 
with him, and too affectionate to leave him to the ruin 
which his own prejudices were preparing for him ; in 
reply to one of the most bigoted objections ever raised, 
therefore, Philip simply says to him, " Come and see." 

* 1 Peter i. 12. 



92 LECTURE VI. 

He knew that there was that in Jesus which required 
only to be seen, and all dislike, and all opposition, all 
hatred and even suspicion, would fall before him. With 
regard to your prejudices against the 'people of God, 
brethren, we have no such remedy to offer ; were you 
even to " come and see," you would find them men of 
Uke infirmities with yourselves, and although, probably, 
not as you at present consider them^ weak, enthusiastic, 
hypocritical, or designing, still there is nothing in them, 
as there was in Jesus, instantly to convince the heart 
of the candid inquirer that they are all they ought to be, 
or even all they desii'e to be ; therefore we must leave 
them, for the present, to suffer from that which is a 
portion of their trial and their cross ; they must commit 
themselves to him who judgeth righteously ; be content 
to bear a burden with which few can be so grievously 
laden as their Lord himself was, and take refuge in one 
of the most comforting and often repeated promises 
which ever flowed from the lips of their Master, 
"Blessed are ye when men shall say all manner of 
evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be 
exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven ; for 
so persecuted they the prophets which were before 
you."* But with respect to your prejudices against 
the doctrines of God, here we encounter no such diffi- 
culties, here we may content ourselves with simply say- 
ing, " Come and see." Inquire for yourselves, read the 
word of God for yourselves, " asking wisdom of him 
who giveth liberally, and upbraideth not," and the event 
will assuredly be, that there is not that truth in the 
divine word which is necessary to salvation, from 

* Matthew v. 11, 12. 



LECTURE VI. 93 

which the mists of prejudice shall not be dispersed, and 
in which you shall not be enabled to believe to the 
saving of your souls. 

Nathanael thus invited, accompanied Philip at once 
to the Saviour. The inspired writer thus continues, 
" Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, 
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." How 
kind and merciful a salutation ! As easy would it have 
been for him to whom all hearts are open, and from 
whom no secrets are hid, to have evinced his own 
omniscience by convicting Nathanael at once of bigotry, 
by repeating to him those words of prejudice, " Can 
there any good thing come out of Nazareth V as thus 
to fix at once upon the favourable point in his charac- 
ter, and so freely and so kindly to acknowledge it. 
Nathanael, astonished at this address from a total 
stranger, ^* said unto him. Whence knowest thou me ? 
Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip 
called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw 
thee."* 

Most commentators suppose that Nathanael was then 
engaged in prayer ; but this is merely conjecture, there 
being nothing in God's word to authorize it, nor is it 
the least necessary to conclude it, since it is evident 
that our Lord m.entions the circumstance to demon- 
strate his own omniscience, and not his approval or 
disapproval of Nathanael's employment. There was 
something in the very minuteness of the circumstance, 
in the naming the tree under which he had been sitting 
in the privacy of his own garden, where no eye had 
seen him, which would have subdued the most pre- 
judiced, which evidently brought instantaneous con- 

* John i. 48. 



94 LECTURE VI. 

viction to the mind of Nathanael He felt that the 
knowledge of such a fact, trifling though it were, sur- 
passed the efforts of all human wisdom ; and he burst 
forth into the acknowledgment of the text, ** Rabbi, thou 
art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel." On 
that day, w^hen the secrets of all hearts shall be dis- 
closed, how will it shame those who with tenfold, yea, 
ten thousand fold, Nathanael's evidence, have not at- 
tained to Nathanael's faith ; who doubt the omniscience 
and the divinity of Jesus, although every page of the 
history we are pursuing is as replete with these great 
truths as the incident before us. 

My brethren, you I trust doubt none of these high 
and important doctrines : it is well ; but let me ask you 
what effect does their knowledge possess upon you? 
You believe that you have to do with a Being who 
reads the heart; who was acquainted with you long 
before you were acquainted with him ; who " knows of 
your down-sitting and your uprising, and who under- 
stands your thoughts afar off."* Never do you retire 
from the busy world, that the eye of that Being does 
not follow you. Never do you mix with the giddy 
throng, to waste that time in idleness and dissipation 
which God has given you for the great work of your 
salvation, without being followed by that all-seeing eye, 
and listened to by that all-hearing ear. Look back, 
then, only upon the past days of the present week, and 
see whether this consideration is w^ell pleasing to your 
soul. Hear our Lord saying to you, as to Nathanael, 
Before that thou camest to my house of prayer, when 
thou wast engaged in such or such a pursuit, occupied 

* Psalm cxxxix. 2. 



LECTURE VI. 95 

in such a pleasure, partaking of sucii an enjoyment, as 
hidden from the world perhaps as the fig tree of Na- 
thanael, " I saw thee." Are there none to whom such 
would be a most painful declaration ? none who would 
be covered with shame, if they even thought that their 
nearest relatives, their dearest friends could utter it 1 
And will you feel less that your most secret acts, most 
hidden transactions, are all " naked and open unto him 
with whom we have to do ?"* 

Brethren, it is no trifling thing to fall into the hands 
of a holy and heart-searching God ; to stand for one 
hour before his judgment seat, who has stood for twenty, 
thirty, forty years, " about our path, and about our bed, 
and spied out all our ways."f Whither should we fly, 
where should we betake ourselves, if he who shall come 
to be our Judge, had not already come to be our 
Saviour, had not already partaken of all the innocent 
infirmities of our nature, and were not therefore pecu- 
Harly qualified to sympathize with us, even in the most 
guilty ? Unless he is our friend, unless we have sought, 
and found, and followed him — for without this he can- 
not be our friend — there is no attribute of Jesus so over- 
whelming as his omniscience. Heaven, earth, and hell, 
are equally open to his eye, while our most secret sins 
are written in the light of his countenance ; and with 
this perfect knowledge is blended the most perfect and 
unerring justice, a justice with which his mercy cannot 
interfere; or one attribute would be exercised at the 
expense of the other, and the perfect God would be 
imperfect like ourselves. Well might the Psalmist ex- 
claim, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so ye 

* Hebrews iv. 13. t Psalm cxxxix. 2. 



96 LECTURE VI. 

perish ! if his wrath be kindled, yea, but a Httle : blessed 
are all they who put their trust in him."* 

No sooner had Nathanael made the avowal of his 
belief in the Messiahship of our Lord, than "Jesus 
answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, 
I saw thee under the fig tree, belie vest thou? Thou 
shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto 
him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall 
see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and 
descending upon the Son of man."t So bountifully 
will our Lord recompense the faith which he himself 
bestows, — "You shall see greater things than these." 
Yes, brethren, if you are now enabled by divine grace, 
with Nathanael, to see Jesus as the Son of God, the 
King of Israel, the Saviour of your soul, you shall see 
greater things than even his omniscience or his omni- 
potence ; you shall see his love employed in blotting out 
every sin which you have committed, his wisdom in 
enlightening and instructing your mind ; his strength in 
supporting your weakness ; his blood in cleansing your 
pollutions ; his spirit in sanctifying and renewing your 
soul. All this you shall see even here below; while 
this is but a ghmpse of that prospect which you shall 
see hereafter, when you shall behold " the King in his 
glory and the land that is very far off,"J the angels of 
God who are for ever rejoicing in his presence, and "the 
spirits of just men made perfect,"^ who have " over- 
come by ihe blood of the Lamb ;"|| all these things you 
shall see, all these things you shall partake of, all these 
things shall be yours, as " ye are Christ's and Christ is 
God's."** 

* Psalm ii. 12. t John i. 50, 51. t Isaiah xxxiii. 17. 

$ Hebrews xii. 23. 11 Revelations xii. 11. ** 1 Corinthians iii. 23. 



97 



LECTURE VII. 

St. John ii. 1, 2. 

** And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee." 

The interview between our Lord and Nathanael, 
with which the last lecture concluded, was of so satis- 
factory and decisive a nature, that Nathanael, con- 
verted to the new religion, appears to have become 
one of the constant followers of our Lord. In company 
with this new convert and the other four disciples, Jesus 
arrived at Cana in Galilee, the native town of Natha- 
nael,^ and about a day's journey from Capernaum. 
Upon the third day after our Lord's arrival, there was 
a marriage, probably of some relative of Jesus, since 
his mother appears to have been a resident in the house, 
while " Jesus and his disciples were called"f to the 
wedding. 

No particulars of the marriage feast are furnished us 
by the inspired historian, until it was drawing towards 
its close, and the wine, which had no doubt been amply 
provided at the commencement, had begun to fail ; then, 
as we are told, the mother of Jesus, who had kept all 
the presages of his future greatness and pondered them 
in her heart, bethought herself that this might be the 
time, and now the opportunity when, if he really were 

* John xxi. 2. t John ii. 2. 

9 



98 LECTURE VIL 

the great and exalted personage she believed him to be, 
he should manifest his supernatural power by an act 
that would be peculiarly gratifying to their assembled 
family and friends. Filled with these high imaginings, 
she drew near to our Lord, and called his attention to 
the circumstance by saying unto him, " They have no 
wine." Our Lord, subject as he had ever been to the 
authority of his parents in earthly matters, but acting 
entirely irrespectively of their control, when " about 
his Father's business,"* replied, " Woman what have 
I to do with thee," or literally, " What is that to thee 
and me ; my hour is not yet come." His mother appa- 
rently understanding this, i^as indeed it was no doubt 
intended, rather as a postponement than a denial,! said 
to the servants, " Whatsoever he saith unto you, do 
it." " Now there were set there," continues the in- 
spired historian, " six water-pots of stone, after the 
manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two 
or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, fill the 
water-pots with water ; and they filled them up to the 
brim. And he said, draw out now, and bear unto the 
governor of the feast ; and they bare it."f How 
striking is the perfect simplicity, the absence of all 
pretension or effort, with which our Lord addressed 
himself to this, his first great and supernatural work. 
Equally removed from every appearance of doubt and 
of display, he does not ask to taste, or even to see the 
wine himself, to ascertain the certainty of the success 
of his command, but tells them at once to carry it to 
the governor. " When the ruler of the feast had tasted 
the water that was made wine, and knew not whence 
it was, but the servants which drew the water knew/ 

* Luke ii. 49. t John ii. 4—8. 



LECTURE VII. 99 

the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and 
saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set 
forth 'good wine^ and when men have well drunk, then 
that which is worse ; but thou hast kept the good wine 
until now."* The governor, ignorant whose word had 
spoken that water into wine, or whence it came, 
praises its excellency, but neither knows nor inquires 
its origin: too accurate a transcript of the conduct of 
the generality of mankind with respect to the gifts of 
God. We taste and see them to be very good, and we 
are satisfied ; we ask not from whose treasure-house 
they come, or by whose exertions they were procured 
for us. It is enough for us that the wine is good ; we 
feel neither surprise nor gratitude that it is not water. 

While if the conduct of the governor portrays our 
behaviour towards God, how does the conduct of our 
Lord exemplify God's merciful deaUngs towards us. 
Kindness and compassion, tenderness and love, are 
stamped upon all his gifts to us ; but perhaps their 
greatest value, and their most exquisite delights, flow 
from the fact, that they are for ever on the increase in 
number, in value, and in power ; and that as surely as 
they delight us now, so surely shall they acquire a rich- 
ness and a blessedness which eye hath not seen, nor 
heart conceived, hereafter. How contrary to all the 
nature of this world's pleasures and the experience of 
this world's votaries ; while the wearied and sated fol- 
lower of sinful joys is daily drawing more and more 
closely from the dregs, and the stream which used to 
delight and gladden his eyes now runs thickly and un- 
invitingly, the children of God, as they approach the 
nearer to the end of their course, find all their pleasures 

* John ii. 9, 10. 



100 LECTURE VII. 

brightening, and all their joys increasing ; the water 
running the clearer because they are drawing closer 
I to the fountain head. You, my Christian brethren, 
who know by blessed experience the love and the 
compassion of your God, will acknowledge that it is 
thus he is even now dealing with you. " Surely good- 
ness and mercy have followed you all the days of your 
life ;"*= but as you grow old in the service of your divine 
Master, as you advance nearer and nearer to the close 
of this world's sojourn, you are constrained to cry out, 
" Thou hast indeed kept the good wine until now :"t 
your union with your Lord is more complete, your 
communion with him more frequent, your dependence 
upon him more simple ; while his manifestations of 
himself to you are more abiding, and the joys of his 
felt presence more satisfying and more exhilarating to 
your souls. And, in addition to this, how cheering is 
the thought that what you are now enjoying is but a 
poor and imperfect foretaste of what you shall enjoy 
hereafter ; that as time rolls on, the wine of his con- 
solations and his love will be for ever on the increase, 
until it shall be perfected in that day when you shall 
drink it new with him in the kingdom of his Father. 

"This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of 
Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples 
believed on him."J 

If we may venture to offer a conjecture, upon what 
w^ere the objects to be attained by our Lord in selecting 
a miracle of this nature, and in performing it upon this 
particular occasion, we should sav that they were two- 
fold. 

1st. His object in selecting a miracle of this nature 

* Psalm xxxiii. 6. t John ii. 10. | John ii. 11. 



L 



LECTURE VII. 101 

was in the most conclusive manner to " manifest forth 
his glory." 

And 2dly. His performing it upon this particular \ 
occasion, was to honour his own institution of the mar- 1 
riage state. 

For the first, it will, we think, appear, that although 
many miracles were more striking in their operation, 
and more splendid in their results, no miracle was better 
calculated to convince the gainsayer, to satisfy the in- 
quirer, and to establish the believer than this before us. 
It was an act of divine power exercised over inanimate 
and senseless matter, and as such was infinitely more 
convincing than any effort of a similar kind could have 
been, if practised upon a living subject. 

So powerful, and yet so subtle, is the influence of 
mind upon matter, that wherever these exist in union, it 
is most difficult for the common observer to pronounce 
what is natural and what is supernatural ; and the 
caviller might truly say, that for all he can prove to the 
contrary, the sick man restored to health by a word 
might have been restored by some occult but natural 
process, without that w^ord : that the lame, or the halt, 
or the helpless, who at a w^ord take up their bed and 
walk, might be, for such unquestionably have been, 
enabled so to do by some powerful impulse of mind 
upon matter, without the intervention of any miraculous 
or supernatural power ; but never did five barley loaves 
feed five thousand persons — never did the liquid waters 
of the deep support the trembling footsteps of him who 
walked upon them — never did water blush itself into 
wine, but at the presence or the bidding of the God who 
made them. 

By commencing, therefore, with such a miracle, our 

9* 



102 LECTURE VII. 

Lord in his infinite wisdom selected that which would 
tend most to " manifest forth his glory," and to silence 
all doubts and all objections ; and the result was, that 
"his disciples believed on him." 

Our Lord's second object we have supposed to have 
been, to honour his own institution of the marriage 
state. 

That marriage is a divine institution, need scarcely 
be insisted upon to those who read the word of God 
which reveals it, and belong to the Church of England 
which so clearly proclaims it. 

The great duty which w^e would rather endeavour to 
press upon you from the fact, that God the Father in 
the days of man's innocency instituted this holy state, 
and that God the Son in the days of his flesh so highly 
honoured it, is to bear continually in mind that it is as 
our Church denominates it, "an holy estate," intended to 
promote the well-being and happiness of God's people, 
by promoting the honour and glory of God; while, that 
it may deserve this high appellation, and contribute to 
these great ends, the word of God has bequeathed to us 
this most important injunction, that they who marry, 
should marry "only in the Lord."* 

If, then, taking these words for our guide, we exa- 
mine the generahty of unions in this professedly Chris- 
tian country, we shall be at no loss to determine to 
what to attribute the great mass of miserable marriages 
which pervade and disgrace society. They are not 
undertaken "in the Lord;" God's guidance, and God's 
blessing, and God's honour, have never entered into the 
calculation, and how can such a state deserve the name 
or inherit the blessing which God has promised upon 

* 1 Corinthians vii. 39. 



LECTURE VII. 103 

** the holy estate of matrimony?" No, brethren, be 
assured, that however indination or convenience may 
promote, or rank or fortune adorn, your marriage, if the 
approving presence of God be not sought, if the Lord 
Jesus Christ be not a bidden and a welcome guest, there 
is no lesser power, no mortal agency, which can turn 
the bitter waters of this world's trials into wine. 

With the hope then, under God's blessing, of rendering 
this state a more holy, and therefore a more happy state 
to some, than they have hitherto found it, I would offer 
a few plain and practical observations to three classes 
of married persons to be met with perhaps in every 
Christian congregation. 
^"" I. First to you, I trust a small proportion, who have 
not married " in the Lord/' and are not at the present 
moment living ^*in the Lord." The marriage state to 
you cannot be a state of permanent happiness; the 
motives which first drew you to each other, the qualities 
which first endeared you, are weakening and dimi- 
nishing every day. From worldly motives, and from 
worldly motives only, you entered into a union which 
God has promised to cement and bless; but God bestows 
no blessing, not even a promised blessing, unsought; 
*^ Ask, and it shall be given,"* is his reiterated com- 
mand. You asked not his blessing upon your union, 
his guidance in undertaking it, for he was not then, nor 
is he now, the object of your thoughts or your desires. 
What, then, is the prospect which lies before you, and 
what the termination to which you look? We will not 
advert to those unhappy conclusions w^hich too fre- 
quently terminate unions such as these — separation, or 
hatred, or sin. We will suppose your lot to be far more 

* M atthew vii. 7. 



104 LECTURE VII. 

favourable, as favourable as the happiest lot where all 
is earthly can ever be ; and still v^e say, What is your 
prospect? A life, perhaps a long life, to be passed with 
one who has no quahfication, the charms of which will 
not sensibly and unquestionably decline ; while as years 
advance, and there will flit across the mind from time 
to time some painful forebodings of an hereafter, some 
fearful suggestions of a coming eternity, there is no 
solace, no comfort, no counsel to be found in your one, 
your only partner ; no one at home when life's evening 
approaches, and the dark clouds are gathering around 
the western horizon, to cheer that twilight hour, and to 
speak of hope beyond the grave, and of joys which will 
never fade, and of suns which will no more go down ; 
no one, when the heart is heavy, and the body bowing 
beneath increasing infirmities, and the spirit sorrowful, 
to shed that blissful ray of heavenly contentment and 
spiritual peace throughout the family circle, which 
marks the presence of a faith which shall not fail, and 
of a love which cannot die. Brethren, it is a desolate 
and a dreary prospect, and at present it is your own ; 
but there is time, there is grace, there is power to 
change it. God waiteth to be gracious. Christ standeth 
at the door and knocks ; the choice is this day with 
yourselves ! whether you will live cheerlessly, and die 
hopelessly, or live, " unto the Lord" and " die unto the 
Lord,"=^ so that living or dying you shall be the Lord's, 
partakers together of his grace here, and of his glory 
hereafter. 

II. But there is yet another class, to w^hom I must 
apply myself while on this deeply interesting subject. 
I allude to you who are thus circumstanced : one part- 

* Romans xiv. 8. 



LECTURE VII. 105 

ner in the marriage state has become impressed by the 
power of God's good Spirit with a deep and heartfelt 
knowledge of the value of eternal things, while the other 
remains careless, indifferent, una wakened. It may be 
that there was this difference at the time of your union, 
if so, you have deep cause for repentance that you trans- 
gressed that express command of your God, which says, 
" Be not ye unequally yoked together with unbelievers, 
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteous- 
ness^ and what communion hath light with darkness ?"* 
Indeed, there is no subject against which the wrath of 
God has beeri more uniformly levelled than against such 
unequal unions as these ! as you will find manifested in 
a remarkable manner by a reference to the 9th chapter 
of Ezra, and the 13th chapter of Nehemiah. 

But, in the majority of cases, this distinction has taken 
place since your union ; one has been brought by the 
teaching of God's good Spirit, to attend to the " things 
belonging to his peace,"f and the other is yet unac- 
quainted with them. Yours, then, is a very difficult 
path, one which requires much counsel, much reflection, 
much prayer. It may, perhaps, in some degree tend to 
simplify your course, if I remind you of the special obli- 
gations under which the marriage contract has brought 
you. If you are a husband, you have promised to 
" love your wife as Christ also loved the Church,"J that 
is, with the most costly love, the most self-denying love, 
that the world has ever witnessed. Even though she 
differ from you in these great and inestimable essentials, 
this promise is altogether binding upon you ; there is no 
modification of which it is capable, no appeal from it, 
which the word of God has ever recognised. Now 

* 2 Corinthians vi. 14. t Luke xix. 42. | Ephesians v. 25. 



106 LECTURE VII. 

with such a love as this in your heart, every prayer, 
every effort, will unite her welfare with your own ; you 
will not be satisfied with carrying one soul to heaven, 
you will be for ever striving with a holy violence with 
God, for the soul of her whom you love ; and such will 
be your faithfulness, and your fervour, and your perse- 
verance, that you will say with Jacob of old, " I will 
not let thee go, except thou bless me ;"* and, in the end, 
how know you not but that, like him, you shall " have 
power with God, and shall prevail," to the salvation of 
her soul. 

If you are a wife, your situation becomes far more 
difficult, because your relative duty is a very different 
one. Hear what God's own word has said to you : 
" Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as 
unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, 
even as Christ is the head of the Church. Therefore, 
as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives 
be to their own husbands in every thing."t These, 
brethren, are the words of God ; time, fashion, custom, 
inclination, cannot alter them ; they form one of the 
most uncompromising commands throughout the whole 
canon of scripture ; not only, '* submit yourselves," 
but submit yourselves " in every thing ;" and not only 
so, but " as the Church is subject unto Christ," that is, 
in the most absolute and unquahfied manner. This 
is so entirely at variance with the spirit of the age in 
which we live, that it will appear to many to be both 
harsh and unnecessary; but a little reflection will con- 
vince you that it is in reahty the very reverse of this ; 
that it is, like every command of our heavenly Father, 
most needful and most kind ; that it offers to the wife a 

* Genesis xxxii. 26. t Epliesians v. 22-24. 



LECTURE VII. 107 

refuge which nothing else could afford her, and which 
no other relationship of life can give. 

God has commanded you to submit to your own hus- 
band " in every thing ;" to this there can, therefore, be 
but one limitation ; when the command of the husband 
is distinctly and positively opposed to some direct com- 
mand of God ; then the prior obligation to " obey God 
rather than man"*= interferes, and the lesser duty is 
absorbed in the greater. But in every thing else, even 
in doubtful matters, even in cases in which, if you 
were unshackled by such an obligation, your more 
enlightened views of Christian duty would decide you 
to act differently, the obligation is still in force, the 
marriage duty of submission is still binding, and you 
are safer if " in faith"f you neglect a doubtful duty, or 
in faith perform a doubtful act, at the command of a 
husband, than you are if you pertinaciously refuse to 
submit, after having, in the presence and in the name 
of God, most solemnly taken upon you the vows of 
submission. There is no doubt that this is an unpala- 
table doctrine, to some, perhaps, even a startling doc- 
trine ; and many would be far better pleased to hear 
that the very fact of their having received clearer 
views of divine things than their husbands, is sufficient 
to justify them in erecting a new standard of duty for 
themselves, and in escaping from what may have be- 
come a very irksome obligation ; but the word of God 
countenances no such alteration ; the Spirit of God 
must have contemplated their case, for there must un- 
doubtedly have been many wives among the Ephesian 
converts, whose husbands were still in unbelief when 
the command was given ; yea, even in the very dark- 

* Acts ?. 29. t James i. 6. 



108 LECTURE VII. 

ness and depths of heathenism, yet does that infinitely 
wise and holy Spirit make no exception ; he says that 
all wives must submit to all husbands, and in all things. 
The universality of the command, with but the single 
exception to which I have already alluded, is indis- 
putable ; and the truly Christian wife has but one plain 
and obvious duty — to obey. But while you may not, 
and ought not, to resist, you both may, and ought, to 
state plainly and affectionately to your husbands what 
are your own views with respect to these things, which 
you have derived from God's revealed word and 
guiding Spirit. This you are bound to do in justice 
to them, as well as in love ; — in justice, for if they 
insist on those things which are contrary to the will of 
God, they do so at their peril, even the peril of their 
immortal souls, and therefore ought to be allowed 
clearly to discern the reason of your objections, and 
the motives from which you act : — And in love, for if 
you love your husbands, you must desire as the first, 
best gift of God, next to your own soul, that " the un- 
believing husband may be sanctified by the wife."* 
You will, therefore, avoid all concealment of the mo- 
tives by which you are influenced. Nothing tends 
more to bring religion into disrepute, than the system 
adopted by too many religious people, of acting rightly, 
but giving false motives for their actions, from a false 
shame of avowing the true. This is quite contrary to 
the very spirit of gospel morality, where all is to be 
honest, and plain, and open : a religious professor with- 
out candour, is almost a contradiction in terms. You 
will, therefore, be careful to avoid concealment, even 
as to your enjoyment of religious ordinances ; the end 

* 1 Corinthians vii. 14. 



LECTURE VII. 109 

can never be valuable to you, when the means by 
which you attain it are questionable. Be open, be 
candid, be sincere ; and if, in consequence, you are 
precluded from the enjoyment of any religious privi- 
leges, God will more than compensate for the heaviest 
loss you can sustain, by his approving smile and cove- 
nanted blessing. 

I need add no more upon the certainty of the com- 
mand of the wife's obedience ; the mercy and the 
comfort of it, although equally true, may not be to all 
equally apparent. They will, perhaps, never be fully 
known, until the secrets of all hearts shall be opened, 
and then the day shall declare, how many actions 
which have now the appearance of inconsistency, were 
performed in obedience to the command of God, be- 
cause in submission to the will of a husband ; how 
much of penalty and self-denial, which the world never 
knew, there was in reality in those scenes of apparent 
pleasure, to which the command of a husband has car- 
ried a submissive wife ; how many a secret tear has 
been shed, and how many a secret prayer has been 
offered at the throne of grace, for him who insisted 
upon these painful compliances ; and, in consequence, 
how much more the hidden hfe of faith in the soul 
grew, and strengthened, and flourished, under all these 
outward hindrances, than in many a course which has 
never experienced their interruption or their pain. 

III. Lastly, I would address a few closing words to 
you who have married " in the Lord," or who have, 
since your union, been together brought to the know- 
ledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, and to a participation 
in the joys of his salvation. 

It is scarcely too much to say that your lot — what- 

10 



110 LECTURE VII. 

ever be your station, unless you are suffering from great 
and pressing privations, or are at present under the 
chastening hand of your God — is the happiest which 
the sun can shine upon. Trials and troubles there will 
ever be, some drops from the bitter fruit of Eden will 
find their way into every cup ; but, unquestionably, the 
higher the cup is filled with the grateful love of God, 
and with the holy love of each other, the less room will 
there be for the distillations of that worse than Upas tree 
to mingle with it. 

There is little for the minister of Christ to say to you 
upon the duties and the obligations of the marriage 
state, of which you are not already conscious. One 
point, however, there is, which is seldom dwelt upon, 
and yet so material to a Christian union, and so power- 
fully productive of Christian happiness in that union, 
that I would affectionately press it upon your attention. 
It is this : Endeavour, both husbands and wives, to 
avoid, or to overcome, all reserve upon religious sub- 
jects between yourselves. You have one heart, and 
one hope, and one Saviour, and one heaven ; you are 
engaged in traversing together the straight and narrow 
path which leads to your Father's kingdom, do not, 
therefore, walk sullenly and silently upon it, as if each 
were travelling by a diflerent road, and going to heaven 
alone. There is, no doubt, a difficulty in conversing 
upon these high subjects with those who are the most 
closely allied to us, perhaps a greater difficulty than 
with those who are almost utter strangers ; it may be, 
because we all feel that it is easier to talk well, than to 
act consistently; while those who know us best are, 
perhaps, the most conscious of our imperfections ; but 
whatever be the reason, it is essential to your happiness 



LECTURE VII. Ill 

that you overcome it. Read the word of God together; 
converse upon it together ; pray over it together ; the 
fire of wedded love never burns so purely and so 
brightly as w^hen continually rekindled from the living 
coals upon the altar of God. There is on record an 
instance of a very sincere Christian, whose only sub- 
ject of lamentation upon his dying bed was, that he 
had conversed so sparingly upon these blessed truths, 
and read so little, and prayed so seldom with his wife. 
But it never yet was recorded that there was one 
who complained that he had^occupied too large a por- 
tion of his time in these employments. 

You must look forward to an hour of separation; 
although to you it will be but temporary, still it is the 
part of Christian wisdom and Christian prudence to 
extract every sting which God in mercy enables you ; 
do not, therefore, leave this for a, death-bed, or a 
parting hour. And if not this, then surely none of still 
sharper point, or still more poisonous. " Bear ye one 
another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."* 
Days of darkness and hours of trial will come to you, 
my beloved Christian brethren, as well as to those 
whom I before addressed ; but how different, how 
widely different, are your prospects. Would that we 
could place the ungodly man for one hour within the 
blessed enclosure, and upon that high eminence on 
which you stand ; the sight of the prospect w^hich lies 
before you, would surely avail to soften, if not to change 
and to convert his heart ; but this cannot be. You 
may, however, rejoice in them yourselves, and fill your 
hearts with thanksgivings, and your lips with praise, 

* Galatians vi. 2. 



112 LECTURE VII. 

that he who has made you to differ from others, has 
not only made your wedded Hfe a holy state and a 
happy state, but a promise and a foretaste of a far 
holier and a far happier which is awaiting you. As 
years roll on, and as the enjoyments of this life are 
daily and hourly contracting into a still smaller com- 
pass ; as the friends of your youth, and the companions 
of your maturer age, are called away, and few of those 
who have cheered and gladdened life remain, then do 
the blessings of a truly Christian union shine forth with 
a splendour rivalling the last rich rays of the setting 
sun. To see those whom you have loved through life, 
and still love dearer and more tenderly as Ufe's tide is 
ebbing fast into the ocean of eternity, to see them stand- 
ing with you upon the brink of time, and looking calmly 
upon those dark waters which have no returning tide, 
ready like yourself to enter into the valley of the shadow 
of death, with the same rod and staff to comfort them, 
the same Saviour to support them, the same eternal 
mansions to receive them; knowing that your truest 
enjoyments here have been those which have partaken 
the most largely of the occupations and delights of eter- 
nity ; these are joys well worth the purchase of the 
longest and the happiest life which earth has ever seen, 
and these are delights which none but those who are 
"in the Lord" can ever know. 

May God grant that all who now hear me, may one 
day experience the reality and the blessedness of these 
mercies here, and the still richer enjoyment of them in 
that kingdom where " there is neither marrying nor 
giving in marriage, but where we shall be equal to 
the angels of God, being the children of the resurrec- 
tion." 



115 



LECTURE I. 

St. John ii. 13, 14, 15. 

f 

" And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jeru- 
salem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, 
and doves, and the changers of money sitting; and when he had 
made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the 
temple." 

We resume the history of our Lord at that period 
which immediately succeeds his first miracle at the 
marriage in Cana. No sooner had he given that re- 
markable evidence of his divine power, than, after a 
few days' sojourn at Capernaum, he went up to Jeru- 
salem to the Passover. There are few things more 
observable than our Lord's undeviating attention to the 
ceremonial law of the Jews. So long as he continued 
under his parents' roof, we are told that " He went up 
with them every year to the feast of the Passover."* 
And now, when he had commenced his ministry, when 
he was looking to the end of these things which were 
so shortly to be aboHshed,f we find him just as unre- 
mitting as ever, in his observance of them. Only four 
Passovers occurred during the course of our Lord's 
ministry ; this mentioned in the text was the first, and 
Jesus suflfered at the fourth. If we are permitted to 

* Luke ii. 41. t See 2 Corinthians iii. 13. 



116 LECTURE I. 

conclude the history, we shall see that he was present 
in Jerusalem upon every return of this great solemnity. 
I mention this circumstance, because it appears desira- 
ble, in following so vast a narrative, embracing nearly 
the whole of the gospels of the four evangelists, to 
establish certain points in our minds which may act as 
way-marks to assist us in obtaining a clear and con- 
nected view of the different portions of the history, har- 
monized according to the times at which they took 
place. The only marks of this kind which occurred, 
at least that we can distinguish, are the Passovers 
which happened during our Lord's ministry. To these, 
then, we shall from time to time refer, to mark more 
distinctly at what period of our Lord's life we have 
arrived. In the first section of these lectures, we have 
already reviewed the history of our Lord, from his 
birth to the first Passover, after the commencement of 
his ministry ; with this we now commence. 

In the present section we purpose investigating the 
incidents which took place between the first and the 
second Passover ; then, at some future period between 
the second and the third Passover ; and lastly, between 
the third and the concluding Passover, with which the 
ministry and the life of our divine Master together ter- 
minated. Jesus, then, intending to keep this first Pass- 
over which had occurred since the commencement of 
his public ministry, arrived in Jerusalem, and imme- 
diately went to the temple. 

The temple at Jerusalem was divided into several 
courts and enclosui'es. First and nearest to " the Holy 
Place" itself, was " the court of the priests," in which 
the sacrifices were offered ; then the court appropriated 
to the women ; then that in which the Israelites alone 



THE HISTORY 

OF 

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
JESUS CHRIST. 



SECTION II. 

FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND PASSOVER. 



LECTURE I. 117 

worshipped ; and then, " the court of the Gentiles," or 
outward court, in which " the proselytes of the gate" 
performed their devotions, and which occupied the 
whole space from the buildings of the temple to the 
wall which divided them from the common ground of 
the city. The whole of these courts went by the name 
of the temple, although this outward enclosure was 
open to the air, and was free for the admission of 
people of every country and faith. It was here that, 
by the sufferance of the priests, and probably to answer 
their mercenary views, the Gentiles were permitted to 
bring cattle for sale for the sacrifices, and doves for 
the offerings of the poorer class of lying-in women, and 
money, that the foreign coin, which Jews from distant 
parts of the world brought with them, might be changed 
into the current coin of Judaea, the half-shekel which 
every Jew paid for the service of the tabernacle.^^ Our 
Lord having then proceeded to the temple, and finding 
there " those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and 
the changers of money sitting ; when he had made a 
scourge of small cords," in all probability from the 
ropes which were used to fasten the cattle, " he drove 
them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, 
and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew 
the tables ; and said unto them that sold doves, take 
these things hence, make not my Father's house a house 
of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it 
was written. The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up."t 
It is remarkable that almost the first action of our 
Lord, after the commencement of his ministry, and the 
last before its close, should have been precisely the 

* Exodus XXX. 13. t Psalm Ixix. 9. 



118 LECTURE I. 

same; viz. the cleansing the temple of God. Twice 
did he perform this miracle ; for it is difficult to con- 
ceive it less than miraculous, that one unarmed and 
unsupported individual should enter the court of the 
temple, and drive before him the numerous profaners 
of its sanctity, and unaided, fulfil that striking prophecy 
of Malachi, " The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly 
come to his temple, even the Messenger of the Cove- 
nant. But who may abide the day of his coming ? and 
who shall stand when he appeareth ? for he is like a 
refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit 
as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify 
the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, 
that they may oflfer to the Lord an oflfering in righteous- 
ness."* It was thus that our Lord began to "purify 
the sons of Levi," by correcting the outward abuses of 
the temple, preparatory to his far more searching and 
sifting purification of its inward deformities and sins ; 
bequeathing a lesson to the visible church of God in 
after ages, that as in the most sacred of all human edi- 
fices, so in the most holy of all human institutions, 
abuses may in time intrude themselves, and that it is the 
part both of prudence and of holiness, not to deny their 
existence where they indeed exist, but, after the example 
of our Lord himself, to be the first to discover and re- 
move them. So diflferently do men, in general, reason 
upon this head, that even to hint at an imperfection, or 
an abuse, in any human institution, is considered too 
often, as an act, at least, of wavering friendship, if not 
of treason and hostility. The consequence of this is, 
that instead of striving to remove imperfections as they 

* Malachi iii. 1—3. 



LECTURE I. 119 

arise, we are led rather to endeavour to conceal them 
even from ourselves ; to abstain, through some undefined 
dread of calling down a curse instead of a blessing, 
from all attempts to remedy even those defects of which 
we ourselves are conscious ; to hesitate in removing, as 
it were, even the ivy which is disfiguring the column, 
lest we pull down the column itself. But, brethren, 
there is both cowardice and faithlessness in this false 
alarm. The temple of God at Jerusalem could only 
remain the temple of God, by being from time to time 
refined, and purified, and made meet, and kept meet, 
for its master's presence. Twice, as we have before 
observed, did our Lord in his own person cleanse the 
temple ; the first time he contented himself with telling 
the buyers and sellers that they were making God's 
house a " house of merchandise ;"* the second time he 
told them, with increasing severity, and a stronger omen 
of approaching judgment, that they had made the house 
of God a " den of thieves ;"'|- but the third time he came 
to that temple, it was in that awful coming when " the 
abomination of desolation" was seen standing in the 
place '^ where it ought not,"J when the Roman eagle 
fleshed its beak in the bodies of the priests, and flapped 
its wings over the smouldering ruins of the temple. 

O, that men were wise, that they would consider these 
things ! Truly scriptural, and truly apostolical, as is 
the admirable Church Establishment of this country ; 
its dearest friends cannot feel assured that no evils, no 
deformities, have, in the lapse of centuries, crept in; 
that no imperfections are to be found even in the outer 
courts of the sanctuary ! While every true and con- 

* John ii. 16. t Matthew xxi. 13 ; and Mark xi. 17. | Mark xiii. 14. 



120 LECTURE I. 

scientious Churchman must allow that the fabric of our 
Establishment, apostolical in its foundation, and scrip- 
tural in all its parts, stands forth pre-eminently in the 
circuit of God's visible temple, as " the Holy Place" of 
the whole earth ; and while every enlightened Christian 
will agree that its liturgy, and its articles, and its homi- 
lies remain, like the " Holy of holies," preserved from 
contamination, by the Spirit of our God so visibly and 
all-pervadingly inhabiting them, there are those who 
wish well to our Zion, and yet believe that there is that 
on the exterior of the edifice, by the removal of which, 
the whole building would be incalculably improved, and 
beautified, and strengthened. And shall we refuse, be- 
cause, thanks be to God, abuses have not found their 
way into the innermost recesses, and polluted the dear- 
est shrines of our temple, shall we refuse to listen to 
those who are anxious to remove what they consider its 
outward deformities'? or, fearful alternative! shall we 
wait until, not our friends, but our enemies, shall do for 
us what we might far more wisely and far more effec- 
tually, by God's help, have done for ourselves ? Shall 
we wait until, under pretence of cleansing the outward 
courts of the temple, our assailants not only rend 
asunder the veil, and force their way into the sanctuary, 
and profane the Holy of holies, but ultimately destroy 
that which the Almighty has for so many centuries 
consecrated by his own immediate presence, and de- 
clared, by the blessings which have flowed from it to all 
the Protestant nations of the world, to be indeed, " the 
house of God, and the gate of heaven ?"* 

In our Lord's reformation of the temple, brethren, 

* Genesis xxviii. 17. 



LECTURE I. 121 

there were two remarkable features, without the combi- 
nation of which, no reformation can be either profitable 
or desirable. I allude to his zeal and to his discretion, 
one as obviously and as strikingly exemplified as the 
other. So great was his zeal, that even his disciples, 
when they beheld him alone encountering the enraged 
multitude of heathen traffickers, and driving them forth 
out of the temple, appear to have been alarmed either 
for his safety or his sanity, until they recollected that the 
Psalmist had foretold the wonderful fervour of the Re- 
deemer's zeal; or, as it is expressed, until "they remem- 
bered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath 
eaten me up."* 

But if the disciples did not fail to observe the zeal of 
our Lord, we must not fail to remark his discretion. 
For while, as we are told, he drove out the oxen, which 
could easily be followed and regained, and poured out 
the money, which could as easily be gathered up again; 
you will observe, that he did not in a similar manner 
set at liberty the doves, for these, once upon the wing, 
would probably never again have been secured by their 
rightful owners; instead, therefore, of opening the cages, 
and putting the doves to flight, our Lord gently, though 
authoritatively, spoke to " those that sold doves, saying, 
Take these things hence."f 

This, brethren, is the spirit, the only spirit, in which 
any really serviceable reformation of our temple can be 
conducted. There must be a steady, ardent, uncom- 
promising " zeal for God,"J which will admit of no 
trifling, no compromise, with regard to the real corrup- 
tions of God's house, if any such there be ; but at the 

* John ii. 17. t John ii. 16. X Romans x. 2. 

11 



122 LECTURE I. 

same time, this zeal must be attended by a holy pru- 
dence, a moral courage, which will sacrifice nothing to 
the restless desire of change, or the weakness of timid 
friends, or the clamour of time-serving adversaries ; but 
having removed those things which are really objec- 
tionable, and repaired what time* or inadvertency may 
have injured, will take its stand upon the great and sub- 
stantial excellencies of our spiritual edifice, and resist, 
even unto the death, all destructive interference with 
them. 

" Then answered the Jews, and said unto him. What 
signs showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these 
things ?'f 

When the Jews beheld our Lord thus boldly under- 
taking as a private individual the great work of refor- 
mation, it was not only natural, but praiseworthy, that 
they should, inquire into the nature of his authority, and 
the extent of his commission. But when they who had 
heard him ^' speak as never man spake,"J saw him thus 
act as never man acted, with a power and success per- 
fectly superhuman, it was the height of incredulity and 
folly to demand a sign. For what sign more conclusive 
than the prophecy of Malachi, to which I have before 
referred, " Who shall stand when he appeareth '?"§ and 
the " scourge of small cords," by which most inadequate 



* We are expressly told in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer, 
which was authorized by the House of Convocation in 1661, that " the par- 
ticular forms of Divine Worship, and the rites and ceremonies appointed to 
be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent and alterable, 
and so acknowledged ; it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important 
considerationSi according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such 
changes and alterations should be made therein, as to those that are in place 
of authority should from lime to time seem either necessary or expedient." 

t John ii. 18. t John vii. 46. $ Malachi iii. 27. 



LECTURE I. 123 

instrument so remarkable a fulfilment of the prophecy 
had been produced ? 

Our Lord, therefore, instead of a sign, to satisfy their 
scepticism, gives them a prediction, more perplexing 
than even the incident which they had just witnessed. 
"Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, 
and in three days I will raise it up again. Then said 
the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in build- 
ing, and wilt thou raise it up in three days ? But he 
spake of the temple of his body. When, therefore, he 
was risen from the dead, the disciples remembered that 
he had said this unto them ; and they believed the scrip- 
ture, and the word which Jesus had said."* 

How " slow of heart"! were even the disciples of our 
Lord, in comprehending the gracious words which fell 
from his lips, if, as it appears, they never understood 
this simple declaration of the Saviour, until they were 
taught it amid the glories of his resurrection from the 
dead. Take courage then, my brethren, if there be 
many dark passages to you at the present moment in 
the revealed word of our God. If you are among the 
true followers of our Lord, you will not make them a 
cause of anxiety or distrust. While the Jews, loud in 
their cavillings, misinterpreted and condemned our 
Lord's assertion, the disciples in silence pondered it in 
their hearts; and what was the consequence? that in 
after days, when their views of divine truth became 
clearer, they remembered the words which Jesus had 
spoken, and believed. There are few advanced Chris- 
tians who will not tell you, that those passages^ in holy 
writ which in the days of their uninstructed bhndness, 
or at the commencement of their spiritual course, were 
their greatest stumbling-blocks, have now become, since 

* John ii. 19—22. t Luke xxiv. 26. 



124 LECTURE I. 

their eyes have been opened, among their most precious 
and soul-encouraging views of divine truths ; and with 
him of old who feasted upon the honey which the bees 
had made, ^even in the carcass of the Hon which 
would have destroyed him, so can they say, " Out of 
the strong came forth sweetness;"^ for what were once 
the most perilous portions of God's word, are now 
" sweeter than honey or the honey-comb."f 

The chapter concludes by informing us, that during 
this Passover at Jerusalem " many believed on his name, 
when they saw the miracles that he did.^J When men 
are drawn more by Christ's w^onders than by his words, 
their conversion is seldom real, seldom permanent. We 
should feel more pleasure in one follower w^ho is drawn 
to Christ by a sense of his own misery, and helplessness, 
and sin, than in fifty who are allured by the sight of mira- 
cles, and wonders, and signs. Accordingly we are told, 
that Jesus " did not commit himself to them, because," 
as the apostle emphatically remarks, " He knew all men, 
and needed not that any should testify of man, for. he 
knew what was in man."§ 

We would urge you, brethren, as to the practical 
result of these concluding verses, to consider what 
should, be the effect upon your own minds of this great 
gospel truth, " Jesus knoweth all men :" Jesus, therefore, 
knoweth you. As the Psalmist says, ^* The righteous 
God trieth the very heart and reins."|| If he, as he 
most surely does, know4 what is in your heart, what 
does he discover there ? Hear from his own lips, from 
the mouth of him who " knew what was in man," what 
be really sees in that sink of corruption. " Out of the 
heart," says the blessed Jesus, in the 15th chapter of St. 

* Judges xiv. 14. t Psalm xix. 10. t John ii. 23. 

$ John ii. 24, 25. II Psalm vii. 9. 



LECTURE I. 125 

Matthew's Gospel, " proceed evil thoughts, murders, 
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphe- 
mies; these are the things which defile the man." And, 
brethren, these are the things, not indeed in the full 
growth of their frightful maturity, but in the malignant 
and hateful embryo, which our Lord beholds in every 
natural heart that he inspects. He sees the full-grown 
murder in the angry thought, the matured adultery and 
fornication in the infant lust, the ripened blasphemy in 
the first buddings of doubt. If, then, this righteous 
Saviour was so filled w^ith holy indignation at the pollu- 
tions of God's temple, that he could not refrain himself 
until he had driven forth every offender, " of how much 
sorer punishment"* shall not he be the minister of to 
those who cherish such corruptions in the living temple 
of their God. For " know ye not that ye are the temple 
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If 
any man defile the temple of God, him shall God de- 
stroy ; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye 
are."f Rest, then, on no outward reformation, no par- 
tial cleansing of the affections and heart, but seek his 
presence w^ho is *' as a refiner's fire, and as fuller's 
soap."J Admit him fully and freely into your hearts, 
at the door of which he is so continually knocking, and 
he will do for the spiritual temple of your body what he 
did for the Lord's house at Jerusalem ; he will cleanse, 
and purify, and sanctify, until every unholy lust, and 
debasing passion, and unworthy temper, shall be driven 
forth before him, and your " whole body, and soul, and 
spirit, shall be preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that hath called 
us, who also will do it."§ 

* Heb. X, 39. 1 1 Cor. iji. 16, 17. t Malachi iii. 2. $ 1 Thess. v. 23. 

11* 



126 



LECTURE IL 

St. John iii. 1, 2. 

" There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of 
the Jews ; the same came to Jesus by night." 

We have now been enabled to trace, by the light of 
God's word, the important incidents in the life of our 
divine Saviour, during more than thirty years of his 
earthly pilgrimage ; and yet, strange as it may appear, 
we have not hitherto arrived at a single instance of his 
familiar conversation. One or two sentences which 
have fallen from his lips have, indeed, been preserved, 
precious gems in the treasury of Scripture, but we have 
yet had no continued discourse, no specimen of the 
manner in which our Lord deUneated the great and 
wonderful scheme which he came to announce and to 
fulfil. We are this morning, however, to be admitted 
to this - high privilege ; we are to hear the great and 
leading truths of our holy rehgion developed by our 
divine Master himself; we are to follow him into his 
retirement, to hsten to his most secret converse ; and 
thus to ascertain from the gracious words which dropt 
from his lips, all that is most important for man to know 
on this side heaven. " Take heed, therefore, how ye 
hear,"* " for to whom much is given, from him shall 
much be required."! 

* Luke viii. 18. t Luke xii. 48. 



LECTURE 11. 127 

It was, then, at the time of the first passover, after 
the commencement of our Lord's ministry, and very 
shortly after the remarkable incident which we reviewed 
in the last lecture, during one of those nights which 
succeeded days of labour and of miracle, and in which 
our Lord withdrew himself from the society even of the 
most beloved disciples, to enjoy the fullest communion 
with his heavenly Father, that the following deeply 
interesting conference took place. 

" A man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler 
of the Jews," L e. one of the members of the Sanhedrim, 
or great council among the Jews, came to our Lord. 
The evangeUst mentions expressly that Nicodemus 
came by night, as a remarkable feature in the incident, 
and forming, no doubt, an evidence of the timidity of 
the inquirer's character, which we see very fully borne 
out by his subsequent conduct. But though the evan- 
gelist, writing by the Spirit of God, has seen fit to men- 
tion this proof of the new convert's cowardice, for our 
edification, our Lord never once mentioned it to Nico- 
demus himself, during the w^hole of their interview ; so 
kindly, so mercifully considerate was he even to the 
most obvious infirmities of those who sought him in 
sincerity. 

Would that Christians would attend more to these 
minute touches of character to be found in the life of 
the Lord Jesus, that they might walk the more closely 
in his footsteps. Were he their constant model, how 
differently would they act towards those who are 
anxious in sincerity to inquire into the things belong- 
ing to their peace, but over whom the fear of the world 
still possesses so large an influence, that, like Nicode- 
mus, they cannot yet escape altogether from its thral- 



128 LECTURE II. 

dom. In dealing with all such, let the compassionate 
Saviour be your pattern : be wiUing to guide, and in- 
struct, and counsel, even where much remains of that, 
which in a more advanced Christian would be a scandal 
to the name. How" many an inquirer into divine truth 
has been driven back upon the world again, because he 
was expected at once to brave its ridicule and its scorn, 
before he had acquired that knowledge and that love, 
that depth of feeling and of interest in religion, which 
are indispensable to enable him to " rejoice" at the 
malice of his enemies, and to " be exceeding glad"* 
when they revile him. Had our Lord closed his doors 
against Nicodemus, because he, who was ashamed to 
acknowledge the Messiah in the face of the world, crept 
to his lowly dwelling under the shadows of the night, 
how great would have been the injury to the infant 
Church, how unutterable the loss to the soul of this timid 
inquirer. 

As soon as Nicodemus was admitted into our Lord's 
presence, he thus addressed him, " Rabbi," giving him 
that title of respect which, as the word of God informs 
us, the Pharisees so dearly loved, " Rabbi, we know 
that thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man 
can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be 
with him."t 

" We know that thou art a teacher come from God ;" 
we, the Pharisees : what a confession ! These very 
men, then, who dared, in after days, to ascribe the 
miracles of our Lord to Beelzebub ; who dared to make 
a boast of their unbelief, and to ask, " Have any of the 
rulers believed on him ?"J possessed, at this very time, 

* Matthew v. 12. t John iii. 2. t John vii. 48. 



LECTURE II. 129 

a positive conviction in their own minds that Jesus of 
Nazareth was the Messiah of God ! Proving, most un- 
answerably, that the sin against the Holy Ghost, with 
which our Redeemer charged them, was no sin of igno- 
rance, no sin into which, unpremeditatedly and uncon- 
sciously, the hapless victim may be led ; but the bold 
and intentional opposition of those who know the Sa- 
viour, and hate his pretensions, and defy his power, and 
blaspheme his Spirit. 

Our Lord thus called upon, by one who in the single 
sentence upon w^hich we have been commenting, may 
be said to have thrown aside the weapons of rebellion 
and acknowledged his allegiance to his rightful Sove- 
reign, enters at once upon the developement of the great 
gospel-scheme of salvation. 

Believing that this is perhaps, the most connected 
view which our Lord ever gave of these high myste- 
ries, in those discourses, at least, which the Spirit of 
God has seen good to bequeath to us, I shall call your 
attention to its arrangement, before I offer a few brief 
observations upon it, only premising, that in these lec- 
tures, while we may slightly mark the more important 
portions of our Lord's discourses, it does not at all enter 
into our intention to expatiate upon every verse. 

1st. In this conversation, our Lord distinctly lays 
down the doctrine of the necessity of an entire renova- 
tion of our fallen nature, in the case of every individual 
who shall enter the kingdom of God. 

2dly. He preaches the gospel in the fullest and freest 
manner in which the gospel ever yet was preached to 
a fallen w^orld ; proving that a simple dependence upon 
himself, the everlasting Saviour, is the sinner's only 
hope ; and, at the same time, that it is a full and sufR- 



130 LECTURE XL 

cient hope for every individual sinner who does not 
wilfully reject it, to the end of time. 

And he then concludes by setting the matter home 
to the heart of Nicodemus, by a representation of the 
inevitable effects of unbelief, its cause, and its punish- 
ment. 

1. The clear and convincing statements of the ne- 
cessity of an entire renewal of our nature, in all and 
each who hope to participate in eternal blessedness. 

With this our Lord commences, as the most simple, 
and as it were foundation-truth, of the whole edifice, 
^' Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."* 

Plain and unquestionable as is this declaration, there 
are few, very few, which our Lord ever announced, 
that have given rise to so much opposition, and to such 
angry and bitter controversy ; because there is no truth 
so mortifying, so humbling, to our fallen nature, and so 
improbable and unintelligible, till taught us by the Spirit 
of God. To tell the man who is boasting of his honour, 
and his rectitude, and his conscientiousness, and his 
benevolence, that there is still much, which God re- 
quires, to which he has not attained, would be in itself 
sufficiently displeasing to the natural heart; but to tell 
that man, as the Christian minister is bound to tell him, 
that with all the high and chivalrous notions of what he 
esteems the best and brightest virtues, that he must 
actually be "born again;" that he must undergo a great 
and visible change ; that the virtues which he now de- 
lights in, and upon which he is contented to rest for his 
acceptance with God, are, as they at present grow, in 

* John iii. 3, 



LECTURE II. 131 

no degree better than weeds in the spiritual garden; 
that before they can please God, they must all be re- 
planted in a different soil from that in which they have 
so long been flourishing ; that the very heart and mo- 
tives from which they spring must be altered ; and that 
all which he has done, or is doing, from the love of self, 
or the love of man, must — not be left undone—but, 
before they can even be tolerated in the sight of the 
Most High,* must flow from the love of God : this is 
indeed, at first, most unintelligible, and, when clearly 
understood, most offensive. 

Nor have we yet reached the end of our difficulties, 
or the conclusion of the offence which this subject, 
when propounded as our Lord propounded it, almost 
invariably brings with it. We have to tell the man of 
the world, the virtuous, high-minded, benevolent, man 
of the world, that he needs this renewal of God*s Spirit, 
as certainly as the most abject and degraded of his 
fellow-beings; that it was not more essential to the thief 
on the cross, to be thus renewed in the spirit of his 
mind, than to the most amiable and conscientious indi- 
vidual to whom we address ourselves. And even more; 
that this renewal is, from first to last, the work of the 
Most High, in which he who is the subject of it, has no 
merit, no claim, but is simply a recipient at the hand of 
infinite Power, and infinite Wisdom, and infinite Love. 

There are few truths from which a preacher shrinks 
more sensitively than from this. He must, if he be un- 
derstood, give pain to many, he may give offence even 
to more ; and yet, if he desire to benefit their immortal 
souls, and to be as uninfluenced by every other feeling 

* See Art. XIII. of the Church of England. 



132 LECTURE II. 

as his divine Master was, this truth must be told, this 
axiom of the reUgion of Jesus Christ must be plainly, 
and strongly, and unequivocally laid down. It is be- 
cause this and similarly painful truths are withheld, 
that our people "are destroyed for lack of knowledge,"* 
and that on the great day we shall be ashamed to meet 
with those who, if we had been more faithful to our 
trust, and more regardless of human opinion, might 
have been "our joy and crown of rejoicing."f God 
forbid, then, that however painful to our own feelings, 
however contrary to your prejudices, or opposed to 
your practices, we should ever suppress, or modify, or 
pass slightly over, one of these great truths, so unuttera- 
bly essential to your well-doing in eternity. 

We repeat then, brethren, and may God write it as 
with a sunbeam on every heart here present, that there 
is no true Christianity without this new birth of the soul, 
this renewal of the heart, and affections, and motives, 
by the Spirit of God ; for, as our Lord says, " That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is 
born of the Spirit is spirit,"J or spiritual, and without 
this spiritual apprehension and spiritual feeling, you 
" cannot see the kingdom of God."§ 

Having in a late discourse spoken so very fully upon 
this high subject, and shown the perfect accordance 
both of our Baptismal Service, and the other accredited 
formularies of our Church, with this doctrine of an 
entire renewal of our fallen nature before we can see 
God, I shall not dwell upon it at the length which would 
otherwise have been requisite. But there is one portion 
of the conversation upon this point, to which it appears 

Hosea iv. 6. 1 1 Thess. ii. 19. | John iii. 6. $ John iii. 3. 



LECTURE 11. 133 

important to refer. Our Lord had said, " Except a man 
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ;" and 
upon Nicodemus expressing his astonishment, and refer- 
ring that to carnal things which Christ intended only to 
apply to spiritual things, he again repeats his assertion 
yet more plainly, " Except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."* 
Nicodemus, still dark and still wondering, again urges 
his inquiry, " How can these things be ?"f and our Lord 
replies, " Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not 
these things ?"J 

I confess that this inquiry of our Lord appears to me 
to contain a key to the whole mystery of this mysterious 
communication. If Jesus had now been proclaiming a 
truth which the Spirit of God had never breathed before, 
why this astonishment that a master of Israel did not 
comprehend it? But if, as it appears, our Lord was 
only referring to a truth which, hpwever overlooked, or 
misunderstood, was still an undeniable truth of God, 
common to the Old dispensation as well as to the New, 
then, indeed, he might be surprised that a teacher of the 
law and of the prophets should be so *•' slow of heart"§ 
to learn it. 

Let us then, for a moment, turn to the waitings of the 
Old Testament, and see whether we cannot discover the 
reason that our Lord expected a Jewish Pharisee to 
understand the fundamental truth of the gospel. We 
shall there find the prophets, many centuries before, 
speaking just as clearly of the necessity of such a moral 
renovation or change, as our Lord now spake of, in the 
chapter before us. We shall find Moses speaking of the 
circumcision of the heart, without which the circum- 

* John iii. 5. t John iii. 9. X John iii. 10. $ Luke xxiv. 25, 

12 



134 LECTURE II. 

cision of the flesh was of no avail ; we shall find Isaiah 
speaking of cities and nations being born again ;* and 
we shall find Ezekiel speaking of the Spirit breathing 
upon the dry bones of the house of Israel, and making 
them live unto the Lord :f and still more plainly in the 
well-known passage, referring to that identical moral 
change which Jesus preached to Nicodemus ; " A new 
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 
within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of 
your flesh) and I will give you an heart of flesh, and I 
will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in 
my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do 
them."J In these passages there is so unquestionable a 
reference to a spiritual change to be effected in the heart 
by the power of God, that our Lord might well express 
his astonishment at the fact, that one who had himself 
learnt and himself taught, these Scriptures, should ap* 
pear so lamentably ignorant of the spirituality of the 
truths which they contained. 

If any thing, then, were wanting to induce you to 
weigh and to consider this great doctrine with tlie atten- 
tion it deserves, surely you will find it in the fact, that 
it is a doctrine not drawn from a single text, or, as you 
may denominate it^ a single hyperbolical expression in 
the gospel, but pervading every portion of God's word ; 
peculiar to no particular dispensation ; prominent alike 
in the Old and in the New ; emanating from the very 
nature of God, and from the fallen state of ruined man ; 
and approving itself, when rightly understood, as com- 
pletely to the conscience, as it clearly does to the reason, 
of every candid and reflecting reader of God's holy 
word. 

* Isaiah xlix. 21. t Ezekiel xxxvii. 9, 10. \ Ezekiel xxx?i. 26, 27. 



LECTURE II. 135 

2dly. No sooner had our Lord removed those doubts 
and misapprehensions which arose in the mind of Nico- 
demus immediately upon the subject of the spiritual 
change being proposed to him, than we find the heavenly 
Teacher advancing from these " earthly things,"* as he 
denominates them, to the more " heavenly things," or 
higher and more pecuHar doctrines of the gospel. 

" As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal 
life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only- 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life."f 

Here, in these few verses, you may behold the entire 
gospel of Jesus Christ; and, brethren, mark well the 
claims which it possesses to your attention and respect. 
The gospel of Jesus, preached by Jesus, and in the very 
first discourse which he ever delivered ! How is it possi- 
ble to hear it with sufficient reverence, to receive it with 
sufficient gratitude, and to act upon it with sufficient 
promptitude, of determination and singleness of heart 1 
We can conceive that many a well-meaning but in- 
credulous attendant upon human teaching, might think 
within himself, when he leaves the temple of God, time 
after time, Men say that what they tell me is the gospel, 
and if it be the gospel, then, most assuredly, I know but 
little of it ; but there are so many human systems, so much 
of human misrepresentation upon all these subjects, that 
I know not where to look for something plain, and simple, 
and intelligible, and strictly and literally true. If I could 
hear, though it were but one sermon from Christ him- 
self, that I might know how he would address the perish- 
ing sinner, how he would proclaim the saving truths of 

* John iii. 12. t John iii. 14-16. 



136 LECTURE II. 

his own gospel, then, like Thomas, I should really see 
and believe. 

Brethren, at this day, this very hour, this desire is ful- 
filled ; you have heard the gospel from the lips of Christ 
himself, unadulterated by human comments or human 
prejudices ; you have heard enough for time, enough for 
eternity, in the gracious words of your Redeemer, which 
have now been repeated to you. Had you never heard 
one declaration of your Lord before, w^ere you to never 
hear another, in treasuring up in your hearts the words, 
*^ whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life," you possess the gospel ; you have that 
which, if at once received as freely as it is freely offered, 
it is all you want, and all you ever can require. It speaks 
its blessed invitation to all ranks, all ages, all hearts, to 
the grossest and most hardened sinner upon earth, as 
freely as to the most moral, amiable, and unexception- 
able character in this house of prayer ; there is no single 
limitation, no one exception throughout a world of hearers 
and a world of sinners. If you believe in this matchless 
instance of the. divine love, if you are willing at once, 
without waiting till you are more worthy, which is Satan's 
great snare in keeping men from Christ, but if you are 
willing at once, by God's grace, to believe that this is 
true, that there is sufficient and more than sufficient in 
Christ Jesus, to reconcile you to God ; and if you will 
but cast your soul upon this all-sufficient Saviour for 
pardon and for life, " all things are yours ;"* Satan is 
vanquished, sin is pardoned, heaven is won. 

Brethren, it is a fearful thing to hear the gospel of a 
Saviour's love ; to incur the responsibifity of such truths, 
such invitations as these now sounding in your ears ; for 
the Spirit of God has declared that they must be " a 

* 1 Corinthians iii. 21. 



LECTURE 11. 137 

savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death,"* 
to every individual who hears them. Could 1 tell who 
would wilfully and ultimately reject them, I solemnly 
declare before God, that I would address that soul, and 
say — I beseech you to depart from us ; Hsten not to these 
truths, if you have determined to resist them ; if you 
come within the sound of them, I must speak of them, 
for " wo is unto me if I preach not the gospel ;"f and 
you, therefore, must hear them ; but, O, remember this, 
that every word of promise, every word of invitation, 
every word of a Saviour's mercy and a Saviour's love, ' 
which has this day fallen unheeded upon your ear, has 
dropt as a burning coal into your heart ; to smoulder on, 
perhaps, through the few short years of remaining time, 
but to be rekindled with a flame which never shall be 
quenched, in the fires of eternity. For listen to the words 
with which our Lord closes his address : " He that be- 
lieveth not is condemned already, because he hath, not 
believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. 
And this is the condemnation," z. e. this is the cause of 
their condemnation, " that light is come into the world, 
and men love darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds were evil."J This is the cause of their condemna- 
tion, that the light of gospel truth has shone upon men's 
paths, and that they have turned aside and struck off into 
the hidden ways of darkness, because their deeds were 
evil, and they resolved to persevere. 

*'He that believeth not, is condemned already." Yes, 
brethren, these are the words of one who never willingly 
inflicted a moment's pain, or spake one word of harsh- 
ness. The sentence is gone forth, the sword is uphfted, 

* 2 Corinthians ii. 16. 1 1 Corinthians ix. 16. 

Uohn iii. 18, 19. 

12* 



138 LECTURE II. 

it waits but the appointed moment to fall upon its victim. 
If there be a sight at which the angels of God must 
mourn and wonder, while they stand awaiting the signal 
for the destruction of the convicted unbeliever, it must 
be to see that unbeliever voluntarily placing himself 
within the sound of a gospel which he is resolved to 
disobey, and within the hearing of the voice of a Saviour 
whom he is resolved never fully and cordially to follow. 
Do I say this, then, to deter any individual now pre- 
sent from seeking Christ? to drive away one humble 
inquirer who is stretching out a weak and feeble hand 
to touch if it were but the hem of the Saviour's gar- 
ment? God forbid. There is no effort, no sacrifice, 
however dear, however costly, which they who know 
by happy experience the blessedness of a Saviour's love, 
would not most cheerfully make, to bring one such sin- 
ner to his Saviour's side. No, brethren, to you, and 
such as you, we can but repeat, what you have this day 
heard from the lips of our Master, " Whosoever believeth 
in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."* Thanks 
be to God, for that one word, " Whosoever :" it is a 
matchless word in such a context. 1 may fill it with 
my name, you with yours, each with his, all with theirs. 
May you who have never yet entered into a covenant 
with God through Jesus Christ, be led to do so this day, 
my beloved brethren; and may the spirit of our God 
grant to you, as he vouchsafed to Nicodemus, that the 
effect of these few sentences from the mouth of our 
Redeemer, may be seen in the renewed heart, and altered 
life, and fixed determination, by God's grace, to be "one 
with Christ and Christ with you,"t in an everlasting 
covenant never to be forgotien. 

* John iii. 16. t Communion Service. 



139 



LECTURE III. 

St John iv. 10. 

" Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, 
and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest 
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." 

After the very interesting and instructive interview 
between our Lord and Nicodemus, which formed the 
subject of the last lecture, we find that Jesus departed 
from Jerusalem. The inspired historian says, "After 
these things," probably referring to the conclusion of the 
Passover, to be present at which was the chief object of 
our Lord's visit to the capital at that time, " After these 
things, came Jesus and his disciples into the land of 
Judasa ; and there he tarried with them, and baptized."* 
It is computed, from a circumstance alluded to in the 
35th verse of the 4th chapter, that our Lord remained 
in Judaea at this time for about six months ; yet at this 
period, the spirit of God has furnished us with few de- 
tails, beyond the facts which we gather from the other 
three evangelists,f that during this time the Baptist bore 
his last testimony to Jesus, and in consequence of his 
faithful reproof of Herod's sin, was cast into prison. 

* John iii. 22. 

t Mark vi. 17—21 ; Luke iii. 19 ; Matthew xiv. 3—5 ; John iii. 23 to the 

end. 



140 LECTURE III. 

No sooner had this event, the imprisonment of John, 
taken place, than the ministry of our Lord appears to 
have assumed a different and far more pubhc character. 
The affecting words of the Baptist began now to be hte- 
rally fulfilled, "He must increase, but I must decrease."* 
As John's ministry was drawing to its close, and his 
voice becoming quenched in silence, the blessed accents 
of the Messiah were heard louder, and clearer, and more 
distinct, and the '' fame of him went throughout all the re- 
gion round about :"f and " from that time, Jesus began 
to preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven 
is at hand."J 

During six months, then, our Lord was thus engaged 
in building, if we may so say, upon the foundation which 
the ministry of John had already laid, and in converting 
to himself " a people prepared for the Lord" in Judaea, 
through the instrumentality of the preaching of his faith- 
ful servant. 

The Pharisees, however, who had already manifested 
their hostility towards John, began to view with still 
greater suspicion and jealousy the preaching of Jesus ; 
and the consequence was, that our Lord thought it pru- 
dent to withdraw for a time from their observation, and 
thus to elude the persecution that threatened. Men sel- 
dom require either precept or example upon the subject 
of consulting their personal safety, or withdrawing from 
the persecuting efforts of their enemies : still there are 
those to whom such advice is not misplaced, who from 
natural disposition, or from defective religious instruc- 
tion, are led to court opposition as the test of their 
sincerity, or the necessary evidence of religious truth. 
To such we would say, this did not Jesus ; he not only 

* John iii. 30. t Luke iv. 14, 15. | Matthew iv. 17. 



LECTURE III. 141 

advised his disciples, " When they persecute you in one 
city, flee unto another,"* but he acted upon this advice 
himself, with remarkable consistency. He availed him- 
self of none of those supernatural means which were 
within his power, to silence the opposer, or destroy the 
persecutor; but he simply w^ithdrew himself, that the 
weakest of his followers, who would have no such super- 
natural means at his command, might feel, that in fly- 
ing from an hour of temptation or persecution, he was 
merely following a divine precept, and a divine example. 
Be ready, then, cheerfully to bear the cross of opposition 
or persecution when it lies in your way, but go not out of 
your way to seek it. Since the Head has been crowned 
with thorns, the feet have never yet been permitted to 
walk on roses ; but God's times are the best times ; and 
when he intends that you should carry a cross, be sure 
you will not want an enemy to lay it on your shoulders. 
" When, therefore," says St. John, " our Lord knew how 
the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized 
more disciples than John," i. e. more disciples than ever 
John had made, " though Jesus himself baptized not, but 
his disciples; he left Judaea, and departed again into 
GaHlee. And he must needs go through Samaria ; then 
Cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, 
near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son 
Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, 
being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well; and 
it was about the sixth hour."t 

There are few pictures of our Lord presented to us 
in holy writ, more interesting than that which is con- 
veyed in the verses we have just read. To behold the 
Saviour of the world so entirely endowed with all the 

* Matthew x. 23. t John iv. 1-6. 



142 LECTURE III. 

sinless infirmities of our nature, so completely partaker 
of our necessities and wants, as to be thus seated, hun- 
gry, and thirsty, and weary, upon the side of the well 
which lay in his way, while his disciples, of stronger 
frame, as it would appear, and hardier habits than him- 
self, had gone forward to the nearest town to obtain 
provisions. 

Had nothing more been mentioned than the single 
fact of Jesus sitting thus on the well-side, " wearied 
with his journey," it would have been a blessing to 
the Christian pilgrim, so often wearied with his jour- 
ney, so often, like the Israelites of old, " discouraged 
because of the way." To behold him in whom is all 
our hope and all our confidence, thus partaking of our 
infirmities, actually, as it were, to see him sinking be- 
neath the heat and the toil of his mid-day journey, 
tends more to convince us that he was " very man,"* 
to assure us of his sympathy and his compassion, than 
all the declarations of sympathy, or all the words of com- 
passion which he ever uttered. But it was not for this 
alone that the circumstance was recorded ; it was for 
what was done, and spoken, and taught, and promised, 
during that hour of weariness and exhaustion, and at 
that tonely w^ell, that it became the subject of the 
chronicler. 

While our Lord was thus sitting, there cometh a 
woman from the neighbouring town, to draw water 
for the use of herself and household. " Jesus saith 
unto her. Give me to drink."t The woman, one of 
an unhappy and ruined class, whose feehngs of com- 
passion and tenderness are hardened by the searing 

* Second Article of our Church. t John iv. 7. 



LECTURE III. 143 

effects of a life of profligacy and sin, instead of hasten- 
ing to the relief of the wayworn traveller, whose very 
aspect might have pleaded with sufficient eloquence for 
the boon for which he sought, answered tauntingly, 
" How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, 
who am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no 
dealings with the Samaritans."* You despise and 
scorn us when you have no need of our services, 
strange that you should condescend to receive a fa- 
vour at the hands of one so despicable. 

Our meek and lowly Master, unmoved by the obvious 
sarcasm of this guilty woman's speech, mildly replies, 
'' If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that 
saith to thee. Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked 
of him, and he would have given thee living water. "f 
Surely the words of the prophet w^ere words of truth, 
when he said, "I am found of them that sought me not."J 
Little did this poor creature imagine, when she brought 
her pitcher from the walls of Sychar, that she should 
carry back those waters of life which would unceasingly 
flow on throughout eternity; little could she have con- 
ceived, that at that well's side, whither she had so often 
gone before, she should that day meet the Saviour of 
the world. Would that a gracious God might at this 
hour grant us a repetition of the blessing, that some, 
yea if it be but one, as poor and as guilty as this Sama- 
ritan harlot, might find to-day, that which they have 
often wandered hither without finding, that for which 
even this day, perhaps, they are not seeking — a God to 
serve, a Saviour to redeem, a Holy Spirit to sanctify 
them. 

" If thou knew^&t the gift of God,*' said our Lord. 

* John iv. 9» t John iv. 10. X Isaiah Ixv. 1. 



144 LECTURE III. 

Yes, brethren, " If thou knewest !" is the solution of all 
the indifference in the world. It is not because you do 
not need a Saviour, that you do not hasten to his feet : 
it is not because you have already found refuge from 
the wrath of an offended God, that you are careless 
and indifferent in seeking the ark of the covenant ; it is 
simply because you do not know " the gift of God." If 
you knew the preciousness of a Redeemer, his unsearch- 
able riches, his unspeakable loveliness, his all-sufficiency 
to supply your every necessity, to cure your every ma- 
lady, to fulfil all your need, so little necessity would 
there be for us so constantly to invite you to a Saviour, 
that you would not, because you could not, keep away 
from him. You would, indeed, " ask of him ;" every 
day would see you at his mercy-seat, every hour behold 
you drawing from that living fountain ; and oh, would 
not this, and every such blessed opportunity as the pre- 
sent see you as welcome guests at that Redeemer's table ? 
Yes, beloved brethren, it is ignorance, and ignorance 
alone, for sin itself is only ignorance in its worst dis- 
guise, which now keeps you from your Redeemer's 
side, and which will, if persevered in, hereafter banish 
you from your Redeemer's kingdom. 

The Samaritan woman's ignorance was not yet over- 
come. " The natural man receiveth not the things of 
the Spirit of God ;"* and, accordingly she replies, " Sir, 
thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep ; 
from whence then hast thou that Uving water '?" While 
the thoughts of Jesus are soaring far above, upon that 
heavenly river " which makes glad the everlasting city 
of God,"t she is only thinking of the well which lies at 

* 1 dorinihians ii. 14. t Psalm xlvi. 4. 



LECTURE III. 145 

her feet. Bowed down to earth, how seldom and how 
slowly do our affections and our thoughts wing upward 
their dull and heavy flight. Truly said an apostle, we 
" are of the earth, earthy ;"* all our thoughts, all our 
desires, all our feelings, until enlightened by the Spirit 
of our God, are clogged, and fettered, and bound down, 
to this same speck of earth, and if they ever take a 
moment's flight above its surface, how soon their wings 
are closed, and they drop down again to earth. '^' Thou 
hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." She 
sees no pitcher, and she believes not that Christ can 
ever reach the waters of that deep well ; fit emblem of 
the faith of the world, which will believe in nothing that 
it could not have anticipated by its own reason, or that 
it cannot measure with its own guage. You know not 
the manner in which God will help you, and therefore 
you will not believe that he can help you. Like Sam- 
son, you imagine that God must « plough with your 
heifer ;"t like the woman before us, that he must draw 
with your pitcher, or that nothing which he can offer 
will be worthy of your reception. Our Lord, in his 
reply, still refrains from all animadversion upon her 
dulness. as he had before, upon her unkindness ; nothing 
in the creature, however provoking, can tempt the Lord 
for a single moment to depart from the infinity of his 
loving-kindness, compassion, and forbearance. Under 
the most aggravating circumstances " He knoweth our 
frame, he rem.embereth that we are dust."J 

Jesus, therefore, still bears with her, and endeavours 
yet once more to affect her spiritual apprehension. He 
answers, " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst 

. 1 Corinthians xv. 47. t Judges xiv. 18. } Psalm ciii. K. 

13 



146 LECTURE III. 

again ; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall 
give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall 
give him shall be in him a well of water springing up 
into everlasting life."* "The water that I shall give 
him," as the evangelist himself explains it in a future 
chapter, was " the Spirit which they that beheve on 
him shall receive."! That blessed gift, by which the 
first faint feelings of the spiritual life are kindled ; that 
httle spring, which at its source gushes forth a narrow 
and a feeble rill, but which shall flow on, widening and 
strengthenings until every bank of sin, and ignorance, 
and worldliness, and finally, of mortality itself, which 
now curbs and compresses it,, shall be broken down, 
and the windows of heaven shall be opened, and the 
full streams of God's grace shall be poured forth, and 
this rill shall become an ocean, and grace, smothered 
here under corruption and infirmity, shall get leave to 
expatiate itself in glory, " a well of water springing up 
into everlasting life !" 

Of these mysteries, however, the Samaritan woman 
had, indeed, little apprehension : she replies, " Sir, give 
me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to 
draw. "J Now commences the second part of this 
remarkable conference : our Lord, finding that the free 
offers of his grace and mercy made so little impression 
upon his hearer, and were, in fact, so perfectly unintel- 
ligible, changes his point, and resolves to unmask her 
to herself, and to convince her of her own sin and un- 
worthiness. To efl^ect this, he adopts a method as 
remarkable for its wisdom as its mercy ; he does not 
upbraid her with her sinful course of life, with which 

* John iv. 13, 14. t John vii. 39. | John iv. 15. 



LECTURE III. 147 

he was perfectly acquainted, but he rather leads her to 
a willing confession of it, and displays before her at the 
same time his own unerring knowledge, and therefore, 
his unquestionable pretensions as the Messiah of God. 
'' Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come 
hither. The woman answered and said, I have no hus- 
band. Jesus saith unto her. Thou hast well said, I have 
no husband ; for thou hast had five husbands, and he 
whom thou now hast is not thy husband ; in that saidst 
thou truly."* How difficult a thing it is to convict of 
sin ! So deep and subtle is the human heart, so many 
are its intricacies, so close its windings, that it is not 
until it is ripped open by " the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the word of God,"t that its contents are known 
even to its possessor. We should have thought that 
such a declaration as this by the Saviour, would have 
brought the Samaritan woman at once a convicted 
sinner, a humbled penitent, a broken-hearted suppliant, 
to his feet. But no ; even this open detection of her 
sin was insufficient, she still has one subterfuge left, 
the subterfuge of every sinner who flies from a con- 
sciousness of sin, to the adoption of some formal scheme 
of worldly religion, for a refuge. She immediately 
endeavours to evade the force of our Lord's remark, 
by turning the conversation to the external observances 
of religion, the comparative sanctities of the Jewish and 
Samaritan temples, the great subject at that time of 
religious dispute. " Sir, I perceive that thou art a pro- 
phet ; our fathers worshipped in this mountain, but ye 
say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to 
worship."! But it was in vain that she thus struggled 

* John iv. 16-18. t Ephesians vi. 17. t John iv. 19, 20. 



148 LECTURE III. 

to get free ; the Lord of life, who " came to seek and 
to save that which was lost,"* had found this wandering 
sheep of the Redeemer's fold, and like the good shep- 
herd who has discovered a runaway lamb, let the 
thoughtless creature struggle as it may, he will not be 
satisfied until he has brought it home on his shoulders 
rejoicing. How many here present have cause to thank 
the Lord of life, that he has acted thus with them ! How 
many of you, my beloved brethren, now safe within the 
fold, would still have been among the wandering, had 
not the same gracious Saviour dealt with you as he now 
dealt with her, and spite of all the determinations of the 
natural heart to resist and to procrastinate, drawn you 
with the bands of love, and united you to himself; and 
in giving himself for your portion, has given that which, 
once enjoyed, you would not barter for ten thousand 
worlds. 

Observe, then, how entirely our Lord's reply goes to 
the subversion of all her prejudices, and to the establish- 
ment of true and vital religion in her heart. - "Jesus 
saith unto her. Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, 
when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru- 
salem, worship the Father. "f " God is a spirit ; and 
they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and 
in truth. "J Teaching at once that important doctrine 
so little known even to the most enlightened worshipper 
then, so often forgotten now, that it is to the state of the 
affections and heart, and to that alone, that God will 
look for acceptable worship. " God is a spirit," and 
nothing but spiritual devotion can please or satisfy him. 

Brethren, are there any among you who need the 

* Matthew xviii. 11. t John iv. 21. J John iv. 24. 



LECTURE III. 149 

lesson which this poor thoughtless Samaritan needed ? 
Any who come week after week, and year after year, 
to this house of prayer, and have never yet discovered 
the real method of access to the Father, never offered 
yet one acceptable prayer ? If you are not utterly in- 
different to these things, pray that you may pray, seek 
the spirit of prayer and of supplication from him that 
" giveth liberally and upbraideth not ;"^ one single sen- 
tence warm from the heart, and offered in the name 
and faith of Jesus, will reach the mercy-seat more 
surely, and bring down blessings more abundantly, than 
whole centuries of the cold, formal, heartless devotions, 
with which, alas ! even our Christian temples are too 
frequently profaned. 

The woman, as it appears, now softened and con- 
vinced by the reply of our Lord, answers, "I know that 
Messias cometh, which is called Christ ; when he is 
come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, 
I that speak unto thee, am he."f 

Never throughout our Lord's whole ministry, with, 
perhaps, a single exception, did he thus plainly and un- 
equivocally declare himself In general, the tendency 
of his replies was, " If ye believe not me, believe the 
works."J He left it to his miracles to stamp truth and 
authenticity upon his doctrines, but here he found one 
who had, probably, never heard of his doctrines, and 
certainly never seen a miracle; and with that tender- 
ness and love which beamed through every part of his 
conduct and conversation, he proclaims himself to her 
in a manner which he had never done, even to the 
dearest and most faithful of his disciples, <* I that speak 

* James i. 5. t John iv. ,25, 26. t John x. 38. 

13* 



150 LECTURE III. 

unto thee am he." And now the great work appears 
to have been achieved ; the rebel heart was broken, the 
weapons of opposition thrown down, the sinning soul 
converted; that was begun to which eternity itself shall 
see no end. The accents spoken beside that lonely 
well were heard in heaven, and angels rejoiced over 
one more sinner that repented, over one more of those 
blessed and happy names which are " written in the 
Lamb's book of life."* 

I need not tell you that in the feelings of that bhssful 
moment, all else was disregarded or forgotten ; the very 
errand for which she thought she had come, was disre- 
garded ; the empty water-pot was left beside the well ; 
while its happy owner, with the expansive communica- 
tiveness of genuine grace, had fled to call her friends 
and her neighbours together, to rejoice with her over 
the sheep which was found, and to seek, and to see, 
and to bless the good shepherd. " She went her way 
into the city," says the evangelist, " and saith to the 
men, come see a man," — not, who has decided the 
question between our temple and the temple at Jerusa- 
lem, oh no, that was all now forgotten; subjects such 
as these sufficed to interest her in her days of darkness, 
but how different was it now, — " come see a man, who 
told me all things that ever I did."! Come see a man 
who has convinced me that I am a sinner ; see a man 
who has reclaimed and converted even me, the most 
hardened of you all ; I do not say, is this the Christ ? 
but, is not this the Christ? I know that he is, for he 
has revealed himself to me, and is already to my soul, 
*^ the chiefest among ten thousand,"^ my hope, my joy, 
my Saviour, and my all. 

* Revelations xxi. 27. t John iv. 28, 29. t Canticles v. 10. 



LECTURE III. 151 

Brethren, little comment can be needed to such a 
story. He who came to seek and to save this woman 
of Samaria, came to seek and to save the best, the 
worst, the loveUest, the vilest among us. He is ready, 
equally ready this day, to receive every sinning child 
of Adam who will hear his voice and accept his invita- 
tion. " Behold, now is the accepted time, behold, now 
is the day of salvation ;"* his arms, his heart, his house, 
his table, his heaven, are all open to you ; " we pray 
you in Christ's stead,"t to enter in. Let him not say of 
you on the great day, as he once said of the Jews, " The 
pubUcans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before 
you,"J for they, when they heard, believed, but ye, when 
his fullest and freest offers were made you, believed 
him not. 

* 2 Corinthians vi. 2, t 3 Corinthians v. 20, t Matthew xxi. 31. 



152 



LECTURE IV. 



St. John iv. 50. 



" Jesus saith unto hira, Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man 
believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went 
his way." 

After the conversion of the woman of Samaria, 
which formed the subject of our last discourse, we find 
that our Lord remained two days at Sychar, strength- 
ening those blessed impressions which had been made, 
and winning from among the Samaritans many souls to 
himself. He was, as he himself tells us, sent expressly 
to the " lost sheep of thp house of Israel ;"* and yet, at 
the request of these Samaritans, who besought him 
to tarry with them, he abode two days w4th these 
" other sheep which were not of that fold."f And how 
blessedly were those two days employed ; ^* Many more 
believed on him,"J says the evangelist. When Christ 
teaches the lesson, the pupil is not long in learning; 
two days under his divine instructions, will do more 
than two years, or even twenty years, where human 
teachers speak, unaided by the Spirit and the presence 
of their Master. Our great object, the object of all 
Christian ministers, is simply this, — to lead our hearers 

* Matthew xv. 24. t John x. 16. | John iv. 41, 



LECTURE IV. 153 

to the feet of the great Teacher of Israel ; to send them 
to his written word, his throne of grace, his ever-present 
Spirit. For this we strive, and labour, and pray ; we 
wish you to receive nothing upon our evidence, to take 
nothing upon trust; why should you learn of the scholar, 
when you may be taught of the Master ? Why should 
you rest in human instructors, when the great Lord of 
life is as near as ever, and as willing as ever, to instruct 
you ? So far from our feehng any thing of disappoint- 
ment or dissatisfaction, that our word is not received 
upon our bare assertion, or our most elaborate demon- 
strations, we ask nothing more sincerely, we desire 
nothing more heartily, than this; to hear every indi- 
vidual, of the souls committed to our charge, express 
himself with the same feeling and in the same language 
as these Samaritan converts, " Now we believe, not 
because of thy words, for we have heard him ourselves, 
and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of 
the world."* 

It is intended, as one great and most important end of 
the lectures in which we are now engaged, to present 
to you the character of the Lord of life, in such en- 
gaging," such endearing colours, i. e. so completely in 
the colours of truth, for there can be no exaggeration 
upon this wondrous theme, that you should, by his 
grace, feel constrained to seek him, and to know him, 
and to love him. Believe me, brethren, one of the highest 
privileges for which life is given you, one of the most 
blessed purposes for which these few short years of trial 
are vouchsafed, is to afford you an opportunity of be- 
coming closely attached and intimately united in the 

# *Johaiv. 42. 



154 LECTURE IV. 

bonds of gratitude and affection, to the man Christ 
Jesus here on earth, that when you meet with him as 
God in heaven, you may meet him with a fervency of 
love, a depth of gratitude, in which the highest arch- 
angel cannot participate, which none indeed but par- 
doned sinners can ever feel. May the words now about 
to be spoken, by God's grace, be conducive to this high 
end. 

After the evangelist has informed us that our Lord 
abode two days, and only two days, at Sychar, he says, 
that Jesus " departed thence, and went into Galilee ;"* 
and then immediately adds, " For Jesus himself testifieth, 
that a prophet hath no honour in his own country."! 
It does not appear at all evident, at first sight, what is 
the connexion between this observation, and our I^ord's 
journey into Galilee. Upon looking, how^ever, at the 
map, we find that Nazareth, which was called our 
Lord's own country or dwelling-place, and where he 
had been brought up, lies directly in the road between 
Sychar (or Sechem) in Samaria and Cana in Galilee,J 
whither he was now going ; and this observation, that a 
" prophet hath no honour in his own country," seems, if 
we may so say, a kind of apology for passing by Nazareth 
and going at once to Cana. Nazareth had been blessed 
with our Lord's presence during nearly thirty years; it 
had seen his innocent and spotless childhood, and the 
matured and perfect holiness of his manhood; for it was 
there that he had " grown in wisdom, and in stature, 
and in favour, with God and man."§ It must have 
heard, therefore, many, very many of those words which 



* John iv. 43. t John iv. 44. 

t See Map in Calmet. $ Luke ii. 52. 



LECTURE IV. 155 

** never man spake ;"* and yet Nazareth honoured and 
loved him not. Like the every-day blessings of common 
life, his presence was too constantly enjoyed in Naza- 
reth to be either appreciated or recognised as a blessing. 
Although, therefore, as we shall shortly see, our Lord 
does not refrain from preaching the gospel even in 
Nazareth, he thinks it unnecessary to honour it with the 
great miracle he was about to perform. He avoids 
Nazareth, and goes at once to Cana, " where he had 
made the water wine."f Them that honour Christ, 
Christ will honour; while they who disregard his word, 
need never seek a miracle. " To him that hath, shall 
more be given, but from him that hath not, shall be taken 
away even that he seemeth to have."J 

No sooner had our Lord arrived at Cana, about forty 
miles distant from Sychar, where it is evident that his 
miraculous powers were well remembered, than the 
following incident occurred : " There was a certain 
nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum," a town 
distant about thirty-three miles from Cana.§ " When he 
heard that Jesus was come out of Judasa into GaHlee, 
he went unto him, and besought him that he would 
come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of 
death,"|l Had the son been in perfect health, the father, 
in all human probability, would never have taken this 
long journey ; would never perhaps have seen, certainly 
would not have sought, the Saviour of the world. How 
few are there, who never come to Christ until sorrow 
or sickness drives them ; how many probably, even in 
this house to-day, who may date the first feelings of love 



* John vii. 46. t John iv. 46. | Luke viii. 18. 

$ Archbishop Newcome. It John iv. 46, 47, 



156 LECTURE IV. 

to their Redeemer, the first attempts to seek the know- 
ledge of his name, from the loss or the sickness of a 
beloved relative or an endeared friend. How many a 
mother, now in heaven, when she looks on the face of 
some loved infant safely housed with' her beneath his 
Heavenly Parent's roof, sees in the cause of former bit- 
terness, the blessed instrument which God employed to 
bring her to himself. Who can deny that even the 
joys of Heaven may be heightened by retrospections 
such as these ? Blessed is that loss however grievous, 
that sorrow however severe, which brings us if it be but 
one step nearer to our Father's house, which unites us, 
in any, the least degree, the more closely to our adorable 
Redeemer ! 

No sooner had this mourning parent presented his 
request to our Lord, than Jesus answered, " Except ye 
see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The noble- 
man saith unto him. Sir, come down ere my child die."* 
The natural impatience of the father overcame even the 
wonted courtesy of the ruler; he scarcely waits until 
Jesus had finished his reproof, and when heard, his full 
heart heeds it not ; his child, his beloved child, is all that 
the anxious parent dwells upon, and his restoration to 
health all for which he pleads. 

How few are there among the children of men who 
would have replied to such an interruption as the meek 
and lowly Jesus answered it. " Jesus saith unto him, 
Go thy way, thy son liveth."f Not a word of reproof, 
for a faith so imperfect, that it believed Jesus could do 
that by his presence which he could not efiect by his 
word; not a syllable of expostulation, that the father's 

* John iv. 48, 49. t John iv. 60. 



LECTURE IV. 157 

heart was too full to profit by the Saviour's lesson ; all 
are overlooked or forgotten by our gracious Redeemer, 
at that moment, in the anxious desire to give health to 
the child and peace to the parent. 

The word of power goes forth, " Thy son liveth ;" the 
father unhesitatingly believes it, and immediately returns 
full of joy and confidence to his disconsolate family. 
But who are these who on the second morning of his 
homeward journey are hastening towards Cana with 
joyful steps to prevent, as they suppose, his unprofitable 
errand, and to recall him to his home ? These are 
the ruler's servants, who, participating in the joy of the 
grateful family, bring the good tidings of the fulfilment 
of the promise, in the very words in which the promise 
itself had been expressed, " Thy son liveth." The 
nobleman, anxious to have his new-born faith con- 
firmed, and not to attribute that to accident, which his 
own heart has already told him must have been the 
work of that wonderful Being from whom he had parted 
yesterday, inquires accurately of the servants, the very 
day, and even the hour, when his child had " begun to 
amend."* But there were no gradations in that conva- 
lescence, there were no beginnings of amendment in the 
cures of the Heavenly Physician ; " Yesterday at the 
seventh hour, the fever left him," completely and entirely 
left him, replied the wondering servants. Then the 
father remembered that at that very hour, while more 
than thirty miles distant from his patient, the wonder- 
working Nazarene had with a single sentence checked 
the pulse's beat, and stilled the maddening current of 
the blood, and cooled the flushed and fevered cheek, 

* John iv. 52. 

14 



158 LECTURE IV. 

and spoken health and life into that drooping frame. 
Who could resist such testimony to the fact, that it must 
be the Maker and the Maker only, who could so repair 
the work. " Himself believed, and his whole house."* 
Behold a double miracle ! for as Bishop Hall well re- 
marks, " With one word does Christ heal two patients, 
the son of his fever, the father of his unbelief!" 

*' This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when 
he was come out of Judaea into Galilee."f 
. We have now contemplated the remarkable and mer- 
ciful conduct of our Lord under three great and widely 
differing circumstances, at the commencement of his 
ministry, before a single sermon had been preached, or 
a single instance of his public instructions has been re- 
corded. It appears as if there were some wise and holy 
purpose to be attained by this, as if in fact our Lord 
would teach by actions before he taught by words ; as 
if he would so unquestionably manifest his character 
by these acts of condescending mercy, that no careful 
inquirer, to the end of time, should ever be in danger of 
misunderstanding him. 

In the three cases to which I allude, we distinctly see 
the conduct of the Saviour of the world towards igno- 
rance, and sin, and suffering. 

I. In Nicodemus there was ignorance. 

II. In the Samaritan woman, sin* 

III. In the Capernaum nobleman, suffering. 

Each differing widely from the other, and yet we 
find the Saviour acting alike to all ; the same conside- 
rate forbearance — the same affectionate compassion — 
the same sympathizing love. Surely, then, it was not 

* John iv. 63. t John iv. 54. 



LECTURE IV. 159 

without a motive that the Spirit of God has recorded 
these three striking incidents, and sculptured them thus, 
as it were, in bold relief upon the very portal of the 
temple. No, the motive is obviously that, to which we 
have just referred ; and from which we may derive this 
most encouraging lesson, viz. Approach the Lord Jesus 
Christ in whichever state of mind you may, whether igno- 
rant, sinful, or suffering, you shall find the strongest en- 
couragement to advance ; you shall see nothing to alarm, 
but every thing to allure you to him, whose name is 
love, and who is " the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
ever."* 

No lesson, we should imagine, brethren, less hard to 
learn, and yet in reality none so difficult of acquirement. 

I. Let me apply it to the consolation of the ignorant. 
Alas ! how many of the worldly wise and worldly learned 
must be content to take their stand among the ignorant, 
upon subjects such- as these. We will suppose, then, that 
some are present, whose feelings might be thus expressed : 
I am well convinced that there is no real happiness out 
of Christ, that unless I can truly betake myself to him, 
I never can enjoy the consciousness of sin forgiven, and 
heaven made my own ; but I do not understand these 
things as others do, I have had little opportunity and less 
inclination to learn them, and I feel that I must become 
more fully acquainted with the great mysteries of salva- 
tion, that I must read my Bible more, and know it better, 
before I can hope for that comfort in Christ Jesus, which 
others feel. 

Brethren, the first of the three examples before us, 
sufficiently answers these objections. You cannot go 

* Hebrews xiii. 8, 



160 LECTURE IV. 

to Christ more ignorant than Nicodemus went; it is 
impossible. You are not invited to go to Christ be- 
cause you know him, but because you do not know 
him ; ignorance itself is a plea sufficient. " Ask wis- 
dom of him," says St. James, " who giveth liberally, 
and upbraideth not."* How encouraging and how 
beautiful is the injunction. Others will teach, but they, 
even unintentionally, upbraid you while they teach ; 
their very knowledge almost upbraids your ignorance, 
and there is something painful in exposing our igno- 
rance to our fellow-men. It is not so with Christ ; 
he is already better acquainted with it than you your- 
selves are, and yet he upbraids you not. Do you, then, 
desire a saving knowledge of him ? Express your 
wishes to him in humble, faithful, fervent prayer, and 
he will not, he cannot deny you. He will manifest 
himself to you, as he does not unto the world; he 
w411 teach you by his Spirit; he- will elevate your 
heart and sanctify your soul, while he enlightens and 
instructs your mind. It is not in our power to tell you 
either the manner or the measure in which he will do 
this ; but if you doubt whether he can do it, or if you 
doubt whether he really will do it, go into the poorest 
cottage — where Christ has gone before you — enter into 
conversation with its inmates, and you will be asto- 
nished at the manner in which the most uneducated 
peasant in the land, who has been taught by Christ, 
will express himself upon those great subjects, which 
to the worldly wise, perhaps to you yourself at this 
moment, are perfectly unintelligible. " All thy children 
are taught of thee,"t said both a prophet and an apos- 

* James i. 5. t Isaiah liv. 13 ; John vi. 45. 



LECTURE IV. 161 

tie ; God has not one ignorant child in all his adopted 
family, not one who when he enters heaven shall be 
ignorant of the " New Song," " Thou wast slain, and 
hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."* Be- 
cause the Spirit of God is the Teacher, and where 
he teaches, nothing necessary to salvation is left un- 
taught. 

Ignorance, however, is not the only or the greatest 
barrier which keeps men from Christ. 

II. By far the most frequent and most insurmountable 
is sin. Let me, then, address a few words to the sinner, 
upon the character of Christ, before we enter upon the 
consideration of his public ministry. 

It is the daily, the hourly excuse of thousands, I am 
not worthy to go to the Saviour, 1 dare not go to him, 
my sins are so many, so grievous, so disgraceful. He 
would drive me from his presence. If you ever think 
or reason thus, it is simply because you do not know 
the character of him with whom you have to do. 
Pity, not indignation, is the feeling with which the 
Saviour views the sinner. Fellow-sinners may act 
harshly to you, but the Saviour never can. Look only 
at the Samaritan woman, her slowness, her dulness, 
her unkindness, her sinfulness. Did any„ or did all these 
united, induce the Saviour of the world to utter a single 
reproach, to speak one unkind, unfeeling word ; or to 
hesitate in the great work of converting her to himself? 
Did they not rather increase his tenderness, because he 
saw that she was so utterly destitute, so entirely lost? 
Brethren, when will you learn to know the Saviour of 

• Revelations t. 9. 
14* 



162 LECTURE IV. 

sinners ? Why will you not learn it by studying the 
Saviour's character, where alone it is to be found, in 
the pages of his revealed word ? You cannot learn it 
in the world, it is impossible ; through all the countless 
generations of our fallen race, there has been no indivi- 
dual in any, the remotest degree, to whom we should 
dare to liken Jesus. There are doubtless, at all times, 
men of kindness, affection, and sympathy among tis, 
men who pity and feel for the sinner, but it is for the 
sinner mourning and broken-hearted that men feel ; it 
is for the. sinner when he ceases to deserve exclusively 
the name, that men reserve their tenderest sympathy 
and best compassion. Is it not so with Christ. While 
he hates sin, he ** willeth not the death of a sinner;" 
for were we not all sinners, when he loved us, even to 
the death. Does not the Spirit of God most emphati- 
cally pronounce this, when he says, " Scarcely for a 
righteous man will one die ; but God commendeth his 
love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us."* If you are at this moment sin-* 
ning with the highest hand and the proudest heart, — if 
you are now sitting among God's people, a mere painted 
sepulchre, a hardened hypocrite, preparing to return to 
your home, laughing to scorn all that you have this 
day heard of a Saviour's tenderness, and a Saviour's 
love, be assured that that same Saviour, who will, if 
you remain unchanged, himself pronounce your sentence 
of unalterable and everlasting wo, by no means wills 
your destruction ; so far from it, that he is v/aiting to 
be gracious, and while he must hate and condemn the 
sin, is only anxious to spare, and pardon, and receive 
the returning sinner. 

* Romans v. 8. 



LECTURE IV. 163 

Do you inquire, — Might I then, even now, stop in 
mid career; might I at once, borne along as I now am, 
upon the full tide of impiety and sin, but feehng my 
misery, and wretchedness, and guilt, and desiring to 
part from it for ever,— might I even now, stretch out 
my hand, and cling, as with a drowning grasp, to my 
Redeemer, and would he not strike me from him, and 
say, " Depart from me, ye cursed ?" Or would he not, 
at least, tell me to seek him, when some real and sub- 
stantial amendment had given proof of my repentance, 
and when higher and holier feehngs had estabHshed 
themselves within my bosom ? We answer, is there 
upon record a single instance to justify you in such a 
conclusion ? No ! the Saviour is, pre-eminently, the 
sinner's friend. That you are a sinner and need him, 
that you are a sinner and willing to forego your sins, 
that you are a sinner and desirous to seek and to be 
saved by him, is sufficient claim to him, to all he is, to 
all he can bestow. He came to help you w^hile in your 
sins, and to save you from your sins, not with the cold 
courtesy of the world to congratulate you upon your 
escape from difficulties, from which it never aided you 
to flee, but to be himself the cause and the instrument of 
your escape. He does not stand upon the bank, and 
wait till the drowning wretch has swam ashore, and 
then encumber him with aid. As with the sinking 
Peter, so it is with you ; the eternal Son of God is with 
you upon those dark waters; only stretch out your hand, 
and it will reach the Saviour's protecting arm. Wait 
not, then, until your motives are more pure, or your 
faith more strong, or your actions more holy, or till you 
have a stronger desire to be saved; attempt these things 
in your own strength, and all will assuredly be lost : but 



164 LECTURE IV. 

come at once to him who alone can purify your motives, 
and strengthen your faith, and regulate your conduct, 
and give the desire. The faith which Jesus gives, and 
which Jesus loves, is that which brings you at once, 
with all your sins upon your head, like the feeble pil- 
grim, to drop your heavy burden at the foot of the cross. 
Wait until you are rid of it, before you come, and you 
will for ever stay away. Nothing but the attraction of 
the cross has power to draw it from you. Come only 
within this blessed influence, and you will then be ena- 
bled to "lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth 
so easily beset you, and to run with patience," and to 
terminate with joy, "the race which is set before 
you."* 

III. There is still one last and valuable hint to be 
deduced from the third of these important incidents, 
more immediately before us this day : it is this — since 
sin and ignorance are not barriers to keep you from a 
Saviour's love, still less is suffering. 

Let me, then, speak to the sufferer, as I have already 
to the ignorant and the sinner. In a suffering world, 
there never yet was such an assembly as the present, in 
which no sufferer found a place. 

Is there, then, within these walls, one, at this time 
mourning for the loss of friends, of health, of happiness, 
surely the happy will not complain if I dedicate a pass- 
ing word to an afflicted brother. I would say, then, 
to you who mourn, though it be but with a worldly or 
a selfish sorrow, the incident before us is not destitute 
of encouragement, even for you. There was nothing 
spiritual in the feelings of the nobleman, when he first 

* Hebrews xii. 1. 



LECTURE IV. 165 

sought the Saviour ; his sorrows were simply natural, 
he was mourning for a dying son; and yet how readily, 
how instantly, did Jesus sympathize with him, and help 
him. "Thy son liveth," were the first words of our 
compassionate Redeemer: before he converted his heart, 
he healed his son. Do not then say, but mine are selfish 
sorrows, mine are worldly cares, they never yet found 
balm and consolation in a Saviour's love; were I to go 
to him, it would not be for himself, but for his gifts. 
Brethren, the Saviour did not thus refine, when he gave 
forth his invitation, " Come unto me, all ye that travail 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."* Are 
you travailing with sorrow? are you heavy laden with 
the burden of oppression or wo ? Christ will give you 
rest. Doubtless, the heavily laden with the burden of 
sin are first invited, but they exclude no other sufferers. 
There is no exception of age, or rank, or clime, the 
extent of the travail, or the weight of the burden ; the 
childish sorrows of the weeping schoolboy are as much 
the subject of the Saviour's sympathy, as the matured 
wretchedness of the aged man; all come within \][\e 
Saviour's invitation. It is the eflfect upon the suflferer's 
heart at which Christ looks, not at the extent of suflfer- 
ing ; the broken heart, touched by his Spirit, may soon 
become a contrite heart; and this God has promised 
he will not despise. 

It is a powerful recommendation to the Saviour that 
you are miserable, and that you believe that he both can 
and will redress your woes; it is sufficient for him that 
you come asking, seeking, knocking. He loves to be 
thus sought, and never yet refused an answer of conso- 

* Matthew xi. 28. 



166 LECTURE IV. 

lation and peace, only be earnest in coming to him, 
seeking your peace, and rest, and happiness in him; 
only commence your acquaintance thus, and there is 
that in Jesus which will never let you go ; there is that 
which requires only to be known, to be most fully and 
entirely loved. " Blessed are they that mourn, for they 
shall be comforted ;" your mourning may at first be but 
from nature's grief, but if you seek and find the Saviour, 
he will soon awaken a more tender chord than this ; 
be will soon strike upon your flinty heart, and the 
living waters shall gush forth, and tears of penitence 
shall intermingle with tears of suffering, until both shall 
be succeeded by tears of joy. 

Finally, remember, my beloved brethren, for your 
" strong consolation,"^ that there is not now one glori- 
fied spirit through all the realms of infinite space and 
infinite bliss, who did not, when he came the first time 
to the Saviour, come ignorant, to be taught, — sinful, to 
be pardoned — suffering, to be healed. '^ Thanks be to 
God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ!" And when that victory is complete, and when 
as victors we shall enter the eternal mansions, strange 
as it may seem to mortal apprehension, we shall there 
discover that suffering, and ignorance, and sin, have 
peopled heaven, 

* Hebrew^ vi> 18. 



167 



LECTURE V. 



Luke iv. 33, 34. 



*♦ And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an 
unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying. Let us 
alone ; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth "? 
art thou come to destroy us] I know thee who thou art; the 
Holy One of God." 

In resuming our lectures upon the deeply instructive 
history of our Divine Master we commence with his 
residence at Capernaum. This was a city peculiarly 
adapted to the purposes of his ministry, both geographi- 
cally and morally ; for it stood on the western shore of 
the sea of Tiberias, and was the dwelling-place of that 
nobleman, whose son our Lord had miraculously healed, 
and whose present health, therefore, would bear con- 
tinual evidence to the Almighty power of the Messiah. 
While in Capernaum, Christ recalled Simon Peter and 
his brother Andrew, who had, probably at our Lord's 
desire, betaken themselves to their wonted occupation 
during the period of their Master's temporary residence 
at Nazareth ; and he added to them the two sons of 
Zebedee, James and John, who like the former, were 
engaged as fishermen on the lake of Tiberias. His 
gracious and encouraging declaration was the same to 
them all, " Fear not ; from henceforth thou shalt catch 



168 LECTURE V. 

men."* How wonderfully fulfilled, let the day of Pen- 
tecost declare, when by a single sermon, preached by 
one of these very men, more than three thousand souls 
were enclosed in the gospel net ; how far more wonder- 
fully, let the present age demonstrate, when the same 
net, formed by these same Evangelists, continues to 
enclose so large a proportion of the inhabitants of the 
world. 

Our Lord, during his residence at Capernaum appears 
to have regularly frequented the synagogue, and there 
instructed the people in the blessed truths of everlasting 
life. Upon one of the Sabbath days when thus em- 
ployed, the evangelist informs us, that " In the syna- 
gogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean 

devil."t 

The subject of demoniacal possessions has always 
been to many readers of holy writ, a difficult and perplex- 
ing one* To those especially who are not satisfied, unless 
revelation will consent to be weighed and measured by 
their own puny reason, it has ever been, it must ever be, 
most embarrassing. The manner in which such men have 
in all ages been content to solve the difficulty, is by sup- 
posing that whenever demoniacal possession is mentioned 
in the Gospel, it is only another expression for insanity. 
This opinion has always had many supporters among 
the learned, but very few among the humble and lowly 
followers of our Lord. They are wisely content to re- 
ceive the word of God, as God has spoken it; and when 
that word declares that a man is possessed by the devil, 
they do not venture, for the sake of overcoming a diffi- 
culty, to affirm that it intended merely to assert, that he 
was insane. In fact, tne circumstances of these pos- 

* Luke V. 10. t Luke iv, 33. 



LECTURE V. 169 

sessions are so peculiar, that nothing but the literal 
meaning of Scripture can be received as in any, the least 
degree satisfactory with regard to them. For instance, 
we hear of one woman out of whom Jesus " had cast 
seven devils."^ What possible meaning could there be in 
this declaration of the word of truth, if " demoniacal pos- 
session" and insanity were convertible terms? Would 
there be any thing intelligible to be gathered from the as- 
sertion that this was the woman out of whom Jesus had 
cast seven madnesses ? And yet if the one really were 
only intended to express the other, there ought to be no 
impropriety in the exchange. The truth is, and it is a 
truth which cannot be too often stated, or too implicitly 
received, as a most important canon, in the interpretation 
of the word of God, that the more strictly we adhere to 
the plain and literal meaning of Scripture, when the sense 
of the passage will bear it, the more correct will be 
our knowledge of " the mind of the Spirit ;" while the 
most remote interpretation is almost invariably the most 
incorrect. The course of wisdom, therefore, not only 
upon this, but upon every subject, is simply to take the 
word of God as we find it, without any reference to our 
own opinions, or to human systems ; and where we 
cannot understand, there simply to bow before infinite 
wisdom, and to receive its declarations in humihty and 
love ; waiting for the day w^hen we shall see as we are 
seen, and know even as also we ourselves are known. 

It w^as, then, in the synagogue of Capernaum that our 
Lord was first confronted with one of those wretched 
beings who were possessed by the evil spirit. Most im- 
probable does it appear that Satan should have been so 
short-sighted as to have wilfully led his victim to the 

* Mark xvi. 9. 

15 



170 LECTURE V. 

house of prayer, and to the presence of the Saviour ; 
and we must therefore conclude, that notwithstanding 
the amazing power which the devil was permitted, at 
that particular period, to exercise over the minds and 
bodies of men, he could not then detain them, contrary 
to their will, from the healing presence of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. An important and comforting considera- 
tion in every age to the tempted soul ; for if Satan was 
thus limited in his evil design, at a period when his 
power appears to have pecuharly predominated, how 
much more confidently may we depend upon the assu- 
rance, that if resisted, he will flee from us. It is the 
believer's comfort to know of a certainty that although 
Satan may persuade, he cannot compel ; he may allure 
you through your own lust,* to follow him, as a retainer 
in his train, but he can never drag you, contrary to your 
will, as a prisoner, at his chariot wheels. 

No sooner, in the narrative before us, did " the unclean 
spirit" behold the Saviour, and witness the power and 
authority by which he spake, than, impelled irresistibly, 
as it would appear, by the overwhelming dread of Deity, 
in whose immediate presence he thus perhaps unexpect- 
edly found himself, " he cried out with a loud voice, say- 
ing, Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, thou 
Jesus of Nazareth ; art thou come to destroy us ? I know 
thee who thou art, the Holy One of God/'f How strange 
and horrible a scene for those pious worshippers in the 
synagogue at Capernaum, when their devotion was thus 
awfully interrupted by the avowed presence of man's 
eternal enemy ! That he is indeed never absent even 
from the holiest places^ never idle even in our most 

* See James i. 14. t Luke iv. 33, 34. 



LECTURE V. 171 

sacred hours, we know by melancholy experience far 
too well ; but to hear him thus crying aloud for mercy , 
to hear him at the same moment proclaiming the Divinity 
of Christ, and his own eternal hostility to him, and sepa- 
ration from him, must have appalled the strongest mind 
in that assembly. 

Would it were true, brethren, that when these super- 
natural instances of Satan's power had ceased, all par- 
ticipation in Satan's feelings had ceased with them ; 
would it were true that never, but in the devil and his 
angels, existed in dreadful association, the knowledge of 
the truth of the Saviour's office, and the hatred of his 
person ! But alas ! does not every open sinner who 
scornfully rejects the Gospel for his rule of life, and the 
Lord Jesus for his Redeemer, even while he knows that 
he cannot disprove the one, or disbelieve the other, stand 
at this moment before God, in almost as awful a state 
of danger, as the unclean spirit in the synagogue of 
Capernaum ? Blessed be God, though there is a strong 
and fearful similarity in their cases, there is yet a differ- 
ence, and it is a great and mighty difference. For the 
sinner, however obstinate and hardened and impenitent 
that sinner may be, " Judah's cleansing fountain" still is 
open ; the blood of the everlasting covenant has freely 
flowed ; a door of access to a throne of grace stands 
wide ; and no sooner is his heart softened by the Spirit 
of God, no sooner does he fall, a willing supphant, be- 
fore that throne, than he may enter within the door of 
grace and mercy. While for that " unclean spirit," not 
all the blood even of Calvary, availed to rescue him 
from a horrible eternity, or to purchase a release from 
everlasting wo ; against him that fountain is for ever 
sealed; that door for ever closed; hope itself shut out; 



172 LECTURE V. 

despair triumphant ; and nothing left him but " a certain 
fearful looking-for of judgment, and fiery indignation 
which shall devour the adversaries."* 

Suppose for a moment, brethren, that within the walls 
of the synagogue, our Lord had addressed that fallen 
spirit, as he addressed the worshippers at Nazareth, I 
am sent *^ to preach deliverance to the captives,"f I offer 
it now freely to you ; the value of my blood shall go 
beyond the bounds of space, and travel even into the 
world of infinity, and unlock the doors of hell ; redemp- 
tion, therefore, is this day freely preached even to you, 
one of its most unclean and ruined inmates. Do you 
think that fallen spirit would have heard as sinners hear, 
hesitated as sinners hesitate, and listened to the words 
of the everlasting Gospel as some, perhaps, even among 
ourselves, are at this moment listening to it ? No, words 
cannot express the feelings with which such a being 
would have started forth from his despondency and 
despair, to have grasped at a hope of even a momentary 
respite from his unutterable pangs. He who, when he 
knew that the Saviour's power would only be exerted to 
control his malignity, exclaimed, " Let us alone,'' would, 
with even the faintest prospect of an escape, have from 
mere selfishness, fled to that Saviour's feet, and even 
while he hated the name of Jesus, would have given 
worlds for one sentence of his pardoning love. But to 
him this could not be ; he had " kept not his first estate,"J 
and even infinite love and infinite wisdom had found no 
remedy. 

" Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God ; 
on them which fell, severity, but toward thee, goodness ;"§ 

* Heb. X. 27. t Luke iv. 18. t Jude 6. $ Rom. xi. 22. 



LECTURE V. 173 

that a remedy, a Saviour, a Heaven, all denied to the 
angels who fell, should all this day, be freely offered to 
you. Let the hardest hearted sinner among us bless 
God, that hope and time are not yet for ever taken from 
him ; that grace is still v^ithin the reach of fervent, faith- 
ful prayer; a Saviour still at hand, Heaven still open, 
and God still waiting to be gracious. " What have we 
to do with thee?" must be the devils' cry, for their sen- 
tence is pronounced, since hell itself is their prepared 
inheritance,* from which there is no escape. While, if 
the sinner, by a hardened perseverance in iniquity, 
comes to the same dreadful fate, it is because he prefers 
disobedience to holiness, the world to Christ, hell to 
heaven; it is, as our Lord himself declared, because, 
" ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.'' 

No sooner had the " unclean spirit" borne this re- 
markable testimony, " I know thee who thou art, the 
Holy One of God," than " Jesus rebuked him saying, 
Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the 
devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him 
and hurt him not. And they were all amazed, and spake 
among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for 
with authority and power he commandeth the unclean 
spirits, and they come out." 

Behold a second source of encouragement for the 
tempted disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ: you know 
something, by experience, of the power of your great 
and eternal enemy ; you are " not ignorant of his de- 
vices."! You feel them, if you know your own hearts, 
in the trials of every day, in the temptations of every 
hour. His knowledge is so vast, his cunning so deep, 

* See Matthew xxv. 41. t 2 Cor, ii. 11. 

15* 



174 LECTURE V. 

his influence so astonishing, that man is as nothing in 
his hands ; he rules and governs him at his will. There 
is but one refuge from his power, and this is by throw- 
ing yourself into the arms of his eternal Conqueror. As 
long as you continue out of Christ, the devil is omnipo- 
tent against you ; but once united to him, and you may 
regard Satan as a conquered enemy ; you are placed 
beneath the cover of that shield from which the fiery darts 
of the wicked one fall harmless and innocuous. " Be 
strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."* 
Even w^hen temptations are at the worst, when every 
faculty of your soul seems to be in league w^ith the 
tempter, still cling to the Redeemer with mighty prayer ; 
and weak and helpless though you be, he will fulfil his 
promise, and make you more than conqueror, for his 
own sake who loved you. So shall you be enabled at 
the last, to take up the triumphant song of the redeemed, 
" We overcame by the blood of the Lamb.^f * \ 

No sooner had our Lord left the synagogue, after this 
signal instance of his divine power over the spirits of 
darkness, than he " entered into the house of Simon 
and Andrew, with James and John,"J " And Simon's 
wife's mother was taken with a great fever, and they 
besought him for her."§ How indefatigable was the 
good Physician; one hour removing the spiritual ail- 
ments, and the next the bodily diseases of his people ; 
evidencing far more clearly than words could speak, that 
there is nothing above his power, nothing beyond his 
willingness to heal. See also in this, the blessed effect 
of intercessory prayer, " They besought him for her." 



* Ephesians vi. 10. t See Revelations xii. 11. 

t Mark i. 29. $ Luke iv. 38. 



LECTURE V. 175 

Doubtless Jesus loved Peter, and therefore could not be 
indifferent to the sufferings of his mother, and yet he 
waited until he was besought ; so truly does our Lord 
delight to hear the voice of his praying people, that he 
delays many a blessing, and holds back many a mercy, 
until he has heard the voice of faithful fervent supplica- 
tion, entreating for that which he is far more ready to 
bestow, than we to asL As soon as he had been be- 
sought in the present instance, he entered the house, and 
stood over the poor sufferer, and as St. Mark adds, 
" took her by the hand, and lifted her up,''* and " re- 
buked the fever, and it left her ; and immediately she 
arose, and ministered unto them."f The greatest plea- 
sure of her renewed life was to be employed like Martha 
in ministering to the wants of Jesus, or' like Mary, in 
sitting at his feet. 

How many are there here present this day, who have, 
like the mother-in-law of Peter, been raised from beds 
of sickness, not by the power of medicine, but by the 
tender mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ! The past 
season has been one of fearful malady, and of no 
common visitation ;J many have been cut off in the 
midst of health and strength, the promise of whose 
future years was quite as bright, and quite as confident, 
as your own. Many now present have been warned 
and threatened, and laid on beds of sickness, and car- 
ried even within sight of the opening grave, and by the 
tender mercy of our God, healed and brought back 
again, the malady rebuked, and death, for the present, 
driven from his prey. It would be well to ask, How 

* Mark i. 31. t Luke iv. 39. 

t Preached shortly after the visitation of the cholera. 



176 LECTURE V. 

many of us, so warned and so favoured then, are to be 
found now, like her of whom we speak, ministering to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the wants of his people ? 
Every mercy is attended by some kindred duty, who 
follows closely in her train ; and when the former has 
paid you her passing visit of tenderness and love, the 
latter offers herself to you as an abiding guest. If the 
mercy of returning health have visited you upon your 
couch of suffering, or your bed of sickness, then the 
duty of a closer walk with God, a more grateful atten- 
dance upon his blessed Son, was her companion. It is 
a painful and a bitter thing, to see how often with re- 
covered health, come forge tfulness of the mercy, and 
neglect of the kindred duty, until the world having re- 
established its supremacy, and every hour and every 
thought having again passed into its service, the ne- 
glected and forgotten duty is driven forth, like the dove 
from the ark of Noah, to return no more for ever. 

My brethren, if you value warnings, if you value 
mercies, or rather if you value the God of warnings and 
the God of mercies, you will be careful that it be not 
so^ with you. We have seen, every minister of God 
has seen, those on a bed of sickness whose hearts 
have appeared to be subdued and softened under the 
pressure of present anguish and the fear of approaching 
death. The world has, for the first time, been revealed 
to them in its true colouring, its wealth, its honours, its 
attractions, all baubles light as air ; while those things 
for which alone, during health, their souls have panted, 
would not, even if bestowed upon them in a richer 
abundance than ever filled their worldliest day-dream, 
have contributed a moment's gratification, or alleviated 
a moment's pain. What anxiety was there then, to 



LECTURE V. 177 

hear of the sinner's hope and the sinner's Saviour! 
What deHght to know, that it was even then, not too 
late ; that the way was open, the door still unbarred, 
and that the truly penitent believer, even at the eleventh 
hour, might enter in. Then have we, like Peter's kin- 
dred, besought the Saviour for the sick and suffering 
sinner, and then has he, that unchangeably gracious 
Redeemer, heard our prayers, and been entreated for 
the sick, and rebuked the malady, and raised the patient. 
And then has come the most grievous disappointment 
which ever befalls the minister of Christ, the return to 
sin and folly, of those whom he vainly hoped, had been 
made partakers of the pardoning and renewing Spirit 
of our God. While a gracious Saviour was engaged 
in answering our cry for mercy, — and how fearfully 
does the consideration increase the heartless ingratitude 
of the backshder — at the very time that the heavenly 
Physician was bringing to him returning ease and 
health, the recovering patient was day by day drawing 
off to a greater distance from the Author of all his mer- 
cies. We trusted that the Saviour had rescued one 
more sheep of his fold from the fangs of the destroyer, 
had secured one more jewel for his crown ; instead of 
which, he has been obliged to confess, " I have laboured 
in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in 
vain."* Every day we discover by some little symptom, 
the backward course of the recovering sinner. All 
anxiety respecting his spiritual state is at an end; the 
Bible which used to be seen beside the sufferer, is no 
longer there, its place supplied by some book of imagi- 
native folly or worthless trifling ; the desire for spiritual 

* See Isaiah xlix. 4, where this language is applied to the Saviour. 



178 LECTURE V. 

converse is over, and any subject of temporary interest 
supplies its place; until at length, health and worldli- 
ness, bodily strength and spiritual indifference, are toge- 
ther re-established. 

Brethren, you who have been on beds of sickness, 
you who still feel the Hability of your frail frame to all 
the thousand maladies which lead down to death, and 
yet in spiritual things have profited nothing by your 
visitation, remember that the patience of the good Phy- 
sician may be too often tried ; that the strivings of his 
good Spirit may be too often resisted ; his influences for 
ever quenched. There is a day coming, when the en- 
treaties of beseeching friends, the prayers of ministers, 
the cry of anguish, will be alike unheard and disre-' 
garded by our God ; when the only companions of a 
sick, and it may be a dying bed, will be the recollec- 
tion of mercies unacknowledged, of resolutions unkept, 
of compassion and love wasted upon one who has made 
no return. 

May the good Spirit of our God carry the present 
warning to hearts which none other yet has reached ; 
may he of his infinite mercy perform that in an hour of 
health, which days of sickness have not affected; and 
may you be led now to minister of your substance, 
your time, your influence, to God, feeling no gift too 
good for him, no sacrifice but a whole heart, sufficient 
to lay upon his altar. \ 



179 



LECTURE VL 

Mark ii. 5. 

" When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, 
Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 

The course of the history in which we are engaged^ 
will this morning bring before us two remarkable in- 
stances of our Lord's supernatural power; the first 
exhibited in the neighbourhood of Capernaum^ during 
one of those circuits which he frequently made while 
resident there, and the second within the city itself. All 
such instances are well worthy our serious considera- 
tion ; but these appear pecuharly so, from the fact, that 
in the first, our Lord very clearly typified, and in the 
second, plainly and unequivocally proclaimed his divine 

power of FORGIVING SIN. 

The first of these miracles is our Lord's cure of the 
leper, which is introduced here upon the authority of 
St. Mark, at the fortieth verse of his first chapter^ where 
we lead that, " there came a leper to Jesus*" Observe 
then, first, the state of the person in favour of whom our 
Lord's miraculous power was about to be exerted. 

He was " a leper," St. Luke adds, he was '' a man 
full of leprosy."* 

Perhaps of all the diseases to which the human frame 



* Luke T. 12. 



L 



180 LECTURE VI. 

was liable, the leprosy was the most astonishing and 
the most appalling. It affected not merely the body of 
the sufferer, which it covered with deep bright spots, 
eating through the skin into the very flesh, and spread- 
ing like one great cancer over the whole frame ; but in 
some supernatural manner, it broke forth upon the gar- 
ments, in green and reddish spots, fretting them away ; 
it even contaminated the walls of the dwelling houses, 
marking them with " hollow strakes," ** greenish or 
reddish, which in sight were lower than the wall;"* 
2. c. corroding not merely the plaster, but eating even 
into the stones of which the houses were built. 

For this terrible disorder no cure had ever been dis- 
covered ; when a house was the subject of it, it was 
ordered to be pulled down, and utterly destroyed. When 
it was found upon the garments, they were directed to' 
be burnt. When any individual was attacked with it, 
he was commanded to apply not to the physicians, but 
to the priests ; and to them not for healing, to which no 
human power pretended, but simply to ascertain whether 
he was really the subject of this dreadful m.alady ; and 
if he were, the priest was to pronounce him unclean, to 
send him forth to dwell alone, separated from the habi-; 
tations and haunts of men, his clothes rent, his head 
bare, a covering upon his face, and condemned perpe- 
tually to cry whithersoever he went, " unclean, un- 
clean,"! lest any passer-by should unwittingly come in 
contact with a malady as contagious as it was loath- 
some and disgusting. 

It was always regarded by the Jews, as a direct 
visitation from the hand of God himself, for the punish- 
ment of sin ; and to this they were probably led, not 

* Leviticus xiv. 37. t Leviticus xiii. 45. 



LECTURE VL 181 

only by the supernatural features of the malady, but by 
the fact that in at least three very striking instances of 
their history, the case of Miriam, of Gehazi, and of Uz- 
ziah, the leprosy had been pronounced by the Almighty 
who inflicted it, to be the immediate punishment of some 
committed transgression* Indeed, our Lord himself 
rather corroborated than discountenanced this opinion, 
when he said after one of his many cures of this dis- 
order, " Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto 
thee."* 

Such, then, was the nature of the malady with which 
the applicant now before our Lord was most grievously 
afflicted ; and a more accurate type of sin, the malady 
of the soul, no bodily disease ever yet presented. Like the 
leprosy, sin also is deeply contagious and incurable by 
human remedies, or human physicians ; while the sinner, 
if he remain uncleansed, will be as completely banished 
throughout eternity from the society of the holy and the 
happy, as the leper was, from the company of the unin- 
fected among the children of Israel. Even the super- 
natural effects of this wonderful disorder, are not with- 
out their counterpart in the leprosy of sin ; for the very 
house of the sinner is an infected house ; his family and 
household are too often partakers with him in the guilt 
and punishment of the disease ; while an expression 
made use of by St. Jude would make it appear, that 
even the contaminated garments of the leper are not 
without some typical resemblance, in that far more 
fearful disease of which we are speaking, when he says, 
" But ye beloved, building up yourselves in your most 
holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves 

* John V. 14 

16 



182 LECTURE VL 

in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, unto eternal life,"* ..." hating even the 
garment spotted by the flesh."f Evidently intending 
to recommend to Christians as complete a separation 
from sinners and their pursuits, as the Israelites were 
commanded to maintain towards their leprous neigh- 
bours. 

Upon seeing Jesus, we are told, that the leper " kneel- 
ing down to him,"J " worshipped him,"§ and " fell on 
his face, and besought him, saying unto him, Lord, if 
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.''|| A very re- 
markable evidence of faith on the part of the patient ; 
he knew full well that no human power could heal him ; 
that for his dreadful malady, the aid of the physician 
was hopeless ; and, therefore, in thus confidently ad- 
dressing Jesus, he certainly demonstrated that if he was 
not actually aware of his divinity, he believed him to 
possess a power, to which no other living being laid the 
remotest claim. 

" And Jesus," continues St. Mark, " moved with com- 
passion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith 
unto him, I will, be thou clean."! The leper had said 
that it depended on the will of Christ, and on that alone, 
"If thou wilt:" Christ at once acknowledges the truth | 
of that assertion, by the independent language of his | 
reply. Not as the disciples, in the case of their mira- 1 

culous cures in the name of another; not even as the I 

If 
prophets of old, by the will of God, but simply in his 

own name, and by his own will, " I will." Who can j 

close their eyes against the powerful evidence which | 

such facts as these adduce to the divinity of the Lord 

* Jude, 20, 21. t Jude, 23. t Mark i. 40. 

$ Matthew viii. 2. II Luke v. 12. IT Mark i. 41. 



LECTURE VI. 1S3 

Jesus Christ? Is an incurable disease to be removed 
from the body? the Lord of life has only to speak the 
word, " I will," and it is done. Is the equally incurable 
soul of the sinner to be healed and saved ? the King of 
Glory has only to say, " I will," and it is effected. 
" Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given 
me, be with me where I am ; that they may behold my 
glory."* 

As the Divine authority of Christ was thus wonder- 
fully manifested on this occasion, so also were his ten- 
derness and love. We are expressly told that "Jesus 
was moved with compassion" to this work of mercy. 
And had we not been thus informed, we might have 
gathered it from the very manner in which he applied 
himself to the undertaking ; no sooner did the cry of 
that loathsome creature, whom probably no other being 
in existence would willingly have approached, come 
within the hearing of our Lord, than the tender and 
compassionate Saviour, instead of standing at a distance 
from him, and calling aloud those words of power which 
were to drive away that cruel malady, not only suffered 
him to draw near, but even laid his hands upon him, 
while he spoke his cure : " Jesus, moved with compas- 
sion, put forth his hand, and touched him." Trivial as 
this act may appear, how deeply must the leper have 
felt, how highly esteemed so unheard-of an instance of 
condescending love. The dearest friend, the nearest 
relative whom that poor sufferer possessed, would not 
have done what Jesus did ; that disease had broken all 
the bonds of affinity, and dissolved the closest ties of 
friendship : from the day that the priest had pronounced 
the " deep bright spot"t to be the burning leprosy, no 

* John zvii. 24. t Leviticus xiii. 2. 



184 LECTURE VI. 

human voice had ever spoken kindness to him ; no hu- 
man hand had ever touched him ; but now the Saviour, 
as if to add to his unspeakable mercy, began by treat- 
ing him with an affectionate sympathy to which he had 
long been utterly a stranger. And what the Lord thus^ 
commenced in tenderness, he consummated in power ; 
" As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy 
departed from him and he w^as cleansed." 

Was the leprosy so remarkable a type of sin, in its 
incurableness, in its contagion, in its uncleanhness, in 
its pollution, then surely we may behold, in the incident 
before us, something typical of the manner in which our 
gracious Lord will deal with the sinner ! This man was 
not only a leper, he was " full of leprosy ;"* are you not 
only a sinner, not merely confessing yourself a sinner, 
as all the world are sinners, but do you feel that the 
deeply spreading malady has made its way through all 
the thoughts and affections and feelings of your soul ; 
that while all have sinned, you are full of sin? that you 
have wasted opportunities of improvement, which to 
others have never been vouchsafed ? that you have dis- 
regarded mercies, which were never shown to them ? 
that if you cannot say with St. Paul that you are the 
chief of sinners, you can yet say, that you know not 
one whose ingratitude has been of a deeper dye, and 
whose forgetfulness of God has been of wider extent 
than your own ? that your malady is incurable by human 
remedies? and that unless the great and Heavenly Phy- 
sician take compassion on you, "unclean, unclean,"f 
must be your cry throughout eternity ? — Then imitate 
the example of your brother leper. He humbled himself 
at the feet of Jesus, he spoke to no one else, he sought 

* Luke Y. 12. t Leviticus xiii. 12. 



LECTURE VI. 185 

no other aid, he cared for no other remedy, he knew the 
utter hopelessness of all human medicines, and came at 
once to the Heavenly Physician. So come to the Shep- 
herd and Bishop of your souls. Come with the same 
humility, and yet with the same unshrinking confidence, 
as the leper came ; say, like him, Lord, I also know and 
feel, that, " If thou wilt thou canst make me clean." 
You will meet with the same kindness, the same affec- 
tionate condescension, the same cure. That Saviour, 
who did not hesitate to touch the leper, will feel no re- 
luctance to lay his healing hand on you. If your cure 
be delayed, it is you only who are the cause of the delay. 
Christ is more anxious to heal than you are to be healed; 
more ready to hear, than you to pray ; more willing to 
pardon than you to sue for it. Every hour that the dark, 
deep leprous spot remains upon the sinner's soul, is rob- 
bing God of his glory, the Saviour of his reward. The 
first faint, but heartfelt cry, for spiritual cleansing, forces 
its upward w^ay through all the opposing atmosphere of 
earth, and stays not, until it is heard by the rejoicing 
myriads around the throne. 

But the returning sinner needs every encouragement 
which God can give, to induce him to apply for pardon 
and acceptance where alone they are to be found, at the 
feet of Jesus. Every feeling of the natural heart is so 
opposed to this simple method, every device of Satan 
is so successfully employed in keeping us away from 
this only plan of salvation which God has offered, that 
the life of Jesus teemed with invitations and encourage- 
ments and persuasions to this one great and most desi- 
rable end. No sooner, therefore, had our Lord made 
an end of thus prefiguring by the healing of the leper, 
his power and his willingness to cure that fatal malady 

16* 



186 LECTURE VI. 

of the soul, of which this bodily ailment was the ac- 
knowledged type, than he hastens to proclaim what he 
h^d now prefigured ; and the opportunity of which he 
availed himself was the following. 

"It came to pass on a certain day, as he was teach- 
ing"* " in the house,"t and " many were gathered toge- 
ther, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, 
no, not so much as about the door, he preached the 
word unto them."J Active and indefatigable as our 
Lord was in preaching in their synagogue publicly 
tapon the Sabbath day, he considered this as no suffi- 
cient reason for not instructing the people in the same 
blessed truths on every day, in private, and in his own 
house. Where the heart is full of the love of God, 
no time will appear inappropriate, no place unseemly, 
to speak of all his wondrous works of providence 
and grace; "out of the abundance of the heart, the 
mouth speaketh."§ And while Christ was thus preach- 
ing, and Pharisees and doctors of the law were sitting 
by, to cavil as they heard, suddenly the roof of the 
house was opened up, and a paralytic man lying on a 
bed was lowered into the room by four of his friends, 
and was dropt as it were at the very feet of the Saviour. 
Not a-word appears to have been spoken by any of the 
party ; the sick man's friends, who remained on the 
roof, and were no doubt looking down with the deepest 
anxiety, to watch the result of their affectionate labour, 
conceived, and truly conceived, that the silent misery of 
the sufferer, would plead his cause, far more effectively 
than their best eloquence ; while the sick man himself, 
apparently unable to speak, from the grievous and affect- 
ing malady under which he laboured, was content to lie 

* Luke V. 17. t Mark ii, 1. X Mark ii. 2. $ Matthew xii. 34. 



LECTURE VI. 187 

at the feet of Jesus, and there to trust to his divine com- 
passion. It is not easy to conceive a nnore powerful 
appeal to the heart of Christ, than the sight of that mute 
sufferer ; while the whole incident was one well calcu- 
lated to affect every individual there present, with the 
most intense interest both in the fate of the patient, and 
in the conduct of our Lord. 

The evangelist continues, "When Jesus saw their 
faith,"* i. e, the faith of all the parties engaged in this 
most silent, and yet most eloquent appeal, he paused in 
the midst of his discourse, and looking upon the poor pa- 
ralytic, as he lay stretched upon his bed at the Saviour^s 
feet, he said unto him, " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins 
be forgiven thee."f How much of tenderness, mingled 
with compassion, was there in this first address. Al- 
though a sufferer, not the less a son ! and, brethren, not 
the less a sinner ! no bodily suffering can atone for sin. 
Grievous, therefore, to the eye of man, as was the out- 
w^ard ailment under which the paralytic hngered, it was 
neglected by the eye of Deity, for the far more fatal 
malady which lay within. And like a skilful physician, 
our Lord left the merely symptomatic disorder, to strike 
at the root of the disease, and carry health and healing 
there. But there was yet another reason for this con- 
duct of our Lord, and one which affected all around 
him, as nearly as him to whom he spake. His remark- 
able assertion, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee," brought 
the question of the claims of our Lord at once to the 
most decisive issue. The Scribes and Pharisees w^ho 
surrounded him, " now began," from secret and silent 
cavilUng, " to reason,"J saying, " This man blasphem- 

* Mark ii. 5. t Mark ix. 2. t Luke v. 21. 



188 LECTURE VI. 

eth."* "Who can forgive sins, but God alone; ?"f Ob- 
serve, then the important and conclusive testimony borne 
by our Lord. He immediately replied, " Wherefore 
think ye evil in your hearts ? For whether is easier, to 
say to the sick of the palsy. Thy sins be forgiven thee, 
or to say, Arise and walk f'J " But that ye may know 
that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy) Arise, take 
up thy bed, and go into thine house."§ " And imme- 
diately the sick man rose up before them, and took up 
that whereon he lay, and went forth before them all, and 
departed to his own house, glorifying God." 

The great end and object of the whole miracle, then, 
appears to have been this, — that all *' might know that 
the Son of man hlith power to forgive sins." And the 
process by which this important fact was established 
was as simple, as it was unanswerable and conclusive. 
It was, as if our Lord had said to his opponents, You 
declare truly that none but God can forgive sins : I 
assert that I have forgiven those of this poor paralytic ; 
of the truth or the falsehood of this you can be no 
judges, but I will appeal from that which does not fall 
within the range of your observation, to that of which 
all, even the most uninformed, can judge. Here is a 
man whose whole frame is paralyzed, none but God 
can restore and renovate the body, which none but God 
could originally create ; now, if by a single word I ara 
able to restore this man to his pristine health, and 
strength, and vigour, where is the caviller who will 
venture to assert that I am unable to forgive his sin? 

By a single word, then, our Lord restored the para- 

* Matthew ix. 3. t Luke v. 21, t Matthew ix. 4. $ Luke v. 25 



LECTURE VI. 189 

lytic ; and by this wonderful proof of his divine autho- 
rity, he convinced every unprejudiced observer, that 
" the Son of man had pov^er on earth to forgive sin." 

In conclusion, let us endeavour, each for himself, to 
view our Lord in that peculiar character in which these 
two remarkable miracles so plainly present him to us, 
as the sin-forgiving Jesus. If while on earth he assumed 
this title, and so strikingly proved, while he asserted, his 
undeniable right to it, how much more unquestionable 
must be that attribute now, when he sits upon the throne 
of his glory, to which God's word declares that he was 
exalted, expressly to " give repentance and the remission 
of sins ?''* Who that has seen his willingness to pardon, 
while on earth, can have a moment's doubt, as to his 
perfect readiness, now in heaven? We would, then, 
earnestly inquire. Are any among you desirous to know 
the Lord Jesus Christ as a sin-forgiving Saviour ? What 
prevents you from acquiring this knowledge ? The way 
of access is freely open to you ; yes, to all, to each. It 
is so plain, so simple, that " the wayfaring man cannot 
err therein,"! It is this, and only this, which God re- 
quires of you, to make you a partaker of his perfect for- 
giveness. Retire into your chamber, and before that 
Saviour who seeth in secret, open your heart freely, 
fully, and unreservedly. Tell him of every sin which 
you have committed by thought, word, or deed, against 
his divine majesty. Suppress nothing, extenuate nothing, 
but confess, as far as you can remember, all that has 
ever grieved his Holy Spirit, or broken his divine law : 
declare before him your deep contrition of soul, your 
hatred and abhorrence of every act which has been 

* Acts V. 31. t Isaiah xxxv. 8. 



190 LECTURE VI. 

displeasing to him, your earnest desire to commit it 
again no more forever; and plead his blessed promises, 
his perfect righteousness, his precious blood. You wH 
not long remain in ignorance of the practical meaning of 
this declaration of our God, " I have blotted out as a 
thick cloud thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy 
sins."* It is because men cannot bring themselves to 
this heartfelt confession, and because they will not seek 
God's Spirit to work it in them, that they so seldom 
attain to real peace of mind and conscience, so rarely 
enjoy the sense of God's forgiveness. Every day some 
little deviation from God's will and God's ways marks 
your course ; a thousand worldly thoughts and unworthy 
feelings cross your path ; and all these are left to rankle 
in the breast, and to alienate you more and more every 
day from God. You want resoluti3n, you want sincerity, 
you want faith, to treat God like an indulgent father, to 
come to Christ as a forgiving friend. You will not be- 
lieve eith r his own word, or his own messengers, when 
they assure you that he is thus merciful, thus indulgent. 
What a cifferacce would it make, not merely in your 
future, but even in your present happiness, if you could 
but be prevailed on to view him thus, to go to him with 
the candour and the confidence with which an affec- 
tionate child, even when he knows that he has greatly 
erred, ventures to approach a kind and forgiving father. 
But as in the parable of the great supper, " all with 
one consent began to make excuse,"f so is it now : one 
is too much occupied with the things of this world, 
another too little interested in those of the world to 
come; while many even of you who are really penitent, 

* Isaiah xliv. 22. t Luke xiv. 18. 



LECTURE VI. 191 

and really desirous of the blessing of sin forgiven, are, 
by some mistaken feeling, kept back from its full recep- 
tion and complete enjoyment. Perhaps the most preva- 
lent of these misapprehensions in the truly contrite heart, 
is that you imagine you have not experienced sufficient 
sorrov^ for sin; that you do not, and cannot grieve for 
it as you hear or as you read that others have grieved 
for it, with all the agony of a broken heart. Christian 
brethren, there is no rule laid down in God's word upon 
this subject; there is no measure of mental anxiety 
which God has especially commanded, and short of 
which he will refuse to pardon or to hear. The only 
measure of grief which God requires, is that which ac- 
companies the determination, by God's help, to forsake 
sin. If you come in sincerity, really desiring to confess 
and bewail all sin, really anxious to give up all sin, 
really praying to be forgiven all sin, there is not that 
individual among you who may not rise from his knees 
that hour a pardoned sinner! freely forgiven by that 
merciful and compassionate Redeemer who has even 
now, as he has ever had, " power on earth to forgive 
sin." What a blessed truth is this ; how can we suffi- 
ciently testify our gratitude to God for the revelation of 
such an unspeakable mercy ! Do not, then, wait till you 
have suffered deeper conviction of sin ; do not keep 
away from a sin-forgiving Saviour, until you have filled 
up any imaginary measure of repentance and grief: the 
very fact that you truly deplore your past transgres- 
sions, that you heartily desire to forsake sin, and to 
receive a Saviour, is evidence sufficient, and recom- 
mendation sufficient, for his pardon and love. It is, 
most frequently, by holding out against the offers of his 
forgiveness and the strivings of his Spirit, that men work 



192 LECTURE VI. 

for themselves those pangs, and that extreme of wretch- 
edness, which although many true children of God un- 
questionably have experienced, many, whose adoption 
is equally unquestionable, have entirely escaped. 

May God of hisi mercy soften every heart, turn every 
mind, bring every soul among us to this most blessed 
state of acceptance with him ; may he lead each in- 
dividual here present to come and seek forgiveness 
through the blood of Christ as a present gift, that each 
may enjoy the consciousness that he is reconciled to 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and that each may 
hear, even while on earth, that blessed sentence, " Son, 
thy sins are forgiven." 



193 



LECTURE VII. 



Luke v. 27, 28. 

" And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named 
Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom ; and he said unto him, 
Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him." 

According to the large majority of biblical critics, 
the calling of St. Matthew is the only incident now re- 
maining in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, which 
occurred during the first year of his ministry. Some 
writers, indeed, are of opinion that the great feast given 
by St. Matthew was upon the day of his conversion, 
and therefore should immediately follow this event; but 
it appears to be satisfactorily demonstrated by Light- 
foot, Archbishop Newcomb, and Doddridge, that these 
events, although placed in juxtaposition by the evange- 
lists, must have been separated by a considerable period 
of time. It has also been urged, in addition to the 
reasons given by those commentators for this separa- 
tion, that at the feast in Matthew's house Jesus spake 
in parables, which he is not known to have done during 
the first year of his ministry. There is good reason, 
therefore, to believe that this instance did not form an 
exception to his general rule, and therefore did not 
occur until after the second Passover, at which time he 

17 



194 LECTURE VII. 

adopted the parabolical method of instruction, probatly 
in consequence of the Scribes and Pharisees imputing 
his casting out devils to Beelzebub. If, then, the har- 
monizers to whom 1 have referred, be correct, the 
calling of St. Matthew is the only incident which re- 
mains to bring up our history to the second Passover 
in our Lord's ministry, and therefore to conclude the 
present section of the lectures in which w^e are engaged. 

" After these things," says St. Luke, " Jesus went 
forth,"* i. e. after he had healed the leper, and restored 
the paralytic, which formed the subjects of the last 
discourse. When our Lord performed the latter of 
these wonderful cures, you will recollect that it was 
expressly stated, that " there were Pharisees and Doc- 
tors of the law sitting by, which were come out of 
every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem :"t 
you will bear in mind how triumphantly our Lord had 
replied to their infidel cavils, and how conclusively he 
had demonstrated to them that "the Son of man had 
power on earth to forgive sin." 

But he had yet another and still more humiHating 
lesson to teach to these same Pharisees and Doctors; 
he had to teach them that " God hath chosen the foolish 
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the 
things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea 
and things which are not, to bring to nought things that 
are; that no flesh should glory in his presence." J 

Let us, then, accompany the Lord Jesus Christ from 
the house in which the cure of the paralytic had been 

* Luke V. 27. t Luke v. 17. t 1 Corinthians i. 27-29. 



LECTURE VII. 195 

wrought, and follow in his train, and become as it were 
eye-witnesses of the method by which he taught this 
great, and instructive, and difficult lesson. " After these 
things," says St. Luke, *'he went forth," and as he 
passed along, many of the Pharisees who had come 
from afar, no doubt accompanying him, "he saw a 
pubHcan, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of cus- 
tom."* 

It is scarcely necessary to remind you, of the degree 
of abhorrence in which the Jews held those of their 
nation who thus accepted office under their conquerors, 
and performed for a foreign and infidel power the 
duties of tax-gatherers, or custom-house officers. So 
undisguised was this hatred, that it had become a com- 
mon saying among the Jews, that "vows made to 
thieves, murderers, and publicans, might be broken." 

No sooner, however, did our Lord discover Matthew, 
seated at his dishonourable employment, receiving, pro- 
bably, the toll which the Roman government exacted 
from those who passed and re-passed the sea of Ti- 
berias, than, to the utter consternation of the self- 
righteous Pharisees, he immediately approached him, 
addressing to him these few and simple words, "Fol- 
low me." 

Without the hesitation of a moment, without the reply 
of a word, the publican arose, and leaving all, in w^hich 
he had been a moment before immersed, instantly obeyed 
the summons, and from that hour, through good and 
ill, through toil and labour, through persecution and pri- 
vation, through contempt, reproach, and infamy, he fol- 
lowed the Saviour of the world. Wonderful illustration 

* Luke ▼.27. 



196 LECTURE VII. 

of the truth of this declaration of our Lord, " My sheep 
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."* 
Here was a proof that " God hath chosen the weak 
things of the world to confound the things which are 
mighty," and here was an evidence to our Lord's super- 
natural power, to neither of which could the most pre- 
judiced Pharisee be blind. For men are not wont to 
quit at once and for ever, long-cherished habits of life, 
and long-established callings, without some powerful 
counteracting principle. Do you doubt the assertion ? 
Then let the most eloquent and persuasive among your- 
selves commence to-morrow, like Jonah of old, to go 
" a day's journey"f through our vast metropoUs, and 
take with you the strongest arguments and the most 
conclusive reasonings, and endeavour to prevail upon 
one tradesman to leave his counter, one man of business 
his office, without any corresponding temporal allure- 
ment to offer him, and it requires no prophet's tongue 
to tell that of the thousands you accost, the tens of thou- 
sands you pass by, you ,,shall not prevail upon an indi- 
vidual to listen, or to obey you. What, then, is the first 
lesson we learn from the incident before us ? that when 
Christ speaks effectually to the ear, the Spirit speaks 
convincingly to the heart : that there is a power in 
God's effectual calling, with which nothing human can 
compete, which will break down all opposition, and 
firmly establish itself in the convinced and converted 
heart of him to whom, it speaks. 

For the individual application of the lesson before us, 
we advance a step farther, and assert that a supernatu- 
ral influence of a nature precisely similar and capable 

* John X. 27. t Jonah iii. 4. 



LECTURE VII. 197 

of producing precisely similar results, must in every 
case be brought to bear upon us before we can be 
enrolled among the true people and followers of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

Now this is one of those great points upon which the 
church and the world have always been, and always will 
be, at variance. The popular opinion is, that all men in 
a Christian country are precisely in the state in which 
St. Matthew was after his conversion. That such a 
change is, unless to the open infidel, or the flagrant sin- 
ner, perfectly unnecessary ; that although the generality of 
men are certainly not living a life of entire devotedness 
to God, for this they cannot deny, yet that a little more 
time and reflection, and perhaps a little good advice 
and a few external means of grace, are all that are 
wanted to bring them to this happy state ; and that, at 
any rate, when these men shall choose to listen to God's 
word, they wall certainly have full power to receive and 
to obey it. The effect of this error is, that men are 
content to go on from day to day, and from year to 
year, resolving at some future time to change, and to 
repent, and to believe all, and to do all, which God 
requires of them ; the fear never, for one moment, 
crossing their mind, that when they may resolve to 
listen, God may not please to speak ; that when they 
may have determined to obey, God may not choose to 
call ; and that thus neglecting present means and pre- 
sent opportunities, all future may be most peremptorily 
denied them. 

While on the other hand what is the view of the word 
of God and of the Church of God upon this great matter ? 
It is, that whenever any individual of whatever country, 

17* 



198 LECTURE VII. 

t 
or rank, or time, is effectually called to follow Christ, 

it is the work of sovereign grace. 

You acknowledge it, you cannot but acknowledge it, 
in the case of St. Matthew, because it is utterly impos- 
sible to account for so remarkable an effect in any other 
manner. You behold a covetous man, for had he not 
been a covetous man, he never would have held an 
office so despised and degraded as that of the publican 
— giving up in a moment all his present gains, all his 
future prospects, at the word of an unknown and un- 
honoured stranger. It is impossible, therefore, not at 
once to confess, in his case, that this was God's work ; 
here was the finger of the Most High, the power of his 
Spirit. 

But then you get rid of the great lesson it was in- 
tended to teach you by saying, " This was a pecuHar 
case ; this was the calling of an apostle ; there is no- 
thing in this at all similar to God's usual deaUngs with 
his creatures, nothing similar is, therefore, likely to 
occur in his treatment of me." 

We will at once acknowledge that, in the case of St. 
Matthew, there was something peculiar, and differing 
from nqost others in our own day, and in the ages that 
have intervened between us, but you will be surprised 
to see how little there was that could be deemed pecu- 
liar, how very little that was exclusively confined to 
the case before us. 

St. Matthew was converted in an instant, the whole 
work as it appears, begun, continued, and completed in 
a single moment. St. Matthew, immediately upon his 
conversion, deserted his worldly gains, left all his 
worldly business, and devoted himself at once to the 
apostleship. 



LECTURE VII. 199 

We admit, then, that Matthew's resigning his worldly 
calling and his worldly gains was pecuUar ; but this 
only as regards the act, and not as regards the state 
of mind which produced the act, and which is required 
of all. We still further grant that the instantaneousness 
of his conversion does not often occur at present. But 
with these two exceptions, we say that there was no- 
thing, literally nothing, in the call of Matthew, which 
has not its counterpart in the effectual calhng of every 
true believer among ourselves. 

We believe that in all cases true conversion is equally 
supernatural in its origin, and equally decisive in its 
effects. 

I. It is equally a supernatural w^ork. 

The eighteen hundred years that have passed since 
this event, have made no difference whatever in the 
human heart. It is just as hard, just as deceitful, just 
as ignorant of God to-day, as on the day w^hen Matthew 
sat at the receipt of custom ; and never does the heart 
respond to the call to spiritual duty and spiritual life, 
until it receives that call from the mouth of its Maker. 
As David has long since declared, " When thou saidst, 
Seek ye my face ; my heart said unto thee, Thy face. 
Lord, will I seek."* It is when God speaks savingly 
to us, when divine grace influences the heart, that the 
heart, so influenced, obeys.f The great objection to 
this which always arises in the mind of " the natural 
man," is, if this be the case, then where is the freedom 
of my own will ? If my conversion to God be thus so 
completely and entirely a supernatural work, the agency 
of his Spirit, then may that Spirit act even against my 

* Psalm xxvii. 8. t See 10th Article. 



200 LECTURE VII. 

will, and carry me, whether willing or unwilling, in the 
train of my conquering Lord. Very few who argue 
thus, are, we fear, really acquainted either with the 
word of God, or with what even their own Church 
says upon the subject of this free-will of which they so 
largely boast. We find the word of God distinctly de- 
claring, "The preparations of the. heart in man, are 
from the Lord ;"^ and again, " Lord, I know that the 
way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that 
walketh to direct his steps.'^f While our Saviour says, 
" Without me, ye can do nothing,"^ therefore, neither 
take the first good step, nor think the first good thought. 
And in agreement with this, the apostle to the Philip- 
plans asserts, " It is God who worketh in you both to 
will and to do, of his good pleasure." Again, we find 
our own Church, in her tenth article, speaking so dis- 
tinctly and uncompromisingly upon this great subject, 
that her children at least cannot hold to two opinions 
upon it, for she says, " The condition of man, after the 
fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare 
himself by his own natural strength and good works, to 
faith and calling upon God." Here, then, we have a 
most distinct avowal that in the case of every indivi- 
dual, even in a Christian country, there is by nature no 
power to turn to God, but that the conversion of the 
heart, under all circumstances, must be a supernatural 
work. 

Is there, then, any violence committed upon the human 
will ? Is there any encroachment upon that free agency, 
without which man would not be a responsible being ? 
Certainly not. At the very moment that Divine grace 

* Proverbs xvi. 1. t Jeremiah x. 23, | John z v. 5. 



LECTURE VII. 201 

is influencing every thought of the mind, and every 
feeling of the heart, and every affection of the soul, our 
v^ill continues perfectly unfettered, our freedom entirely 
uncontrolled. 

How^, then, is this ? We reply, that while we con- 
tinue in our natural state, our will is opposed to God's 
will, but the very moment that the effectual calling of 
Christ reaches the soul, his grace captivates the affec- 
tions ; the heart distinguishes that in his word, in his 
commands, in himself, which it begins to love. There 
is no longer any opposition of our will to be overcome, 
for it has already coincided with God's will, and is not 
now at variance with it. So far, therefore, from the 
service of Christ being any encroachment upon our free- 
dom, the first desire of our renewed heart is to enter 
his service, to obey his will, and like the IsraeHtish 
servant of old, voluntarily to be pierced " through the 
ear unto the door,"* that we may be his for ever. 

You may tell " the natural man" that the very fact 
that his conversion is a supernatural work, implies that 
his will must be forced, his free agency encroached upon, 
his liberty destroyed, and he will doubtless credit you; 
and slave, as he really is, to Satan's cruel bondage, he 
will embrace his chains and thank God he is yet free, 
and pity the superstition which is enslaving thousands* 
But, talk to " the spiritual man" of the service of God 
being a hard service ; tell him that his will is subjugated ; 
that his inclination is fettered ; his liberty gone ; and 
how will he answer you ; he will say, Go tell the child 
who is devotedly attached to the most affectionate of 
parents, and who knows no will but theirs, that he is a 

* See Exodus xxi. 6, and Deuteronomy xr. 17. 



202 LECTURE VII. 

slave ; or tell those kindred hearts which are bound 
together by the strongest ties on this side of heaven, that 
theirs is a bitter bondage ; even they may credit you, 
but I never can ; for every thought of my mind, and 
every feeling of my renewed heart, and every affection 
of my bosom, indignantly repels so palpable a falsehood, 
" His commandments are not grievous."* His name is 
love, every act and word of his to me has been full of 
love, forbearing love, pardoning love, directing, guiding, 
sanctifying love, from the day, when God of his sove- 
reign grace, called me into spiritual existence, even until 
this hour. Instead of feeling my present state a state of 
bondage, I never knew what Hberty was, I never had a 
moment's respite from the thraldom of my unholy tempers 
and lusts and passions, from Satan and from sin, until 
the Lord Jesus Christ himself, by his supernatural power, 
made me partaker of the glorious liberty wherewith he 
makes his people free.f 

It is thus, in sentiment at least, that every truly con- 
verted follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, while he ac- 
knowledges that the change which has been wrought in 
him is wholly supernatural, will reply to the charge that 
his will has been forced, his mind fettered, his freedom 
destroyed, by a service in which love alone commands, 
and love obeys. 

II. As the work of conversion has been shown to be 
as completely a supernatural work now, as it ever was, 
so may it be shown, that the effect of conversion now, 
is as decisive as it has ever been. 

The effect upon Matthew the publican was, as we 
have seen, that he instantly left all for Christ ; and the 

* 1 John V. 3. t Galatians v. 1. 



LECTURE VII. 203 

effect upon the sincere Christian in every age is as 
marked, and as decisive. He does not indeed cast aside 
his worldly business, or forsake his worldly calling, but 
he desires to do, and when truly turned to God, he is 
enabled to do what is in every respect the same. He 
follows every earthly occupation with a single eye to 
God's glory; he holds all his worldly possessions in 
charge for God; he becomes in heart and mind, in 
motive and action, a " new creature :" and even Matthew 
the apostle differed not more decidedly from Matthew 
the publican, than such a man differs from his former 
self. That this is so, the lives of many holy, self-denying 
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ in every age will de- 
termine; that it must be so, all Scripture loudly tells. 
For does not the word of truth most unequivocally de- 
clare, that " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avail- 
eth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature ;"* 
and again, " If any man be in Christ he is a new crea- 
ture ; old things are passed away, behold all things are 
become new.^f 

It is easy to say, that such declarations as these refer 
to other people and to other times ; that what is perfectly 
suitable to the unbaptized heathen, is preposterous when 
appHed to the baptized Christian. It would be so, were 
the baptized Christian always a Christian in heart, as 
well as name ; it is so, where the " washing of regenera- 
tion, and renewing of the Holy Ghost," have been effec- 
tual in turning the whole man to God. But dare we 
say that this is the case of the majority ? Does not the 
experience of every day and of every heart proclaim 
at once that it is not ? You know that it does. You 

* Galatians vi. 15. t 2 Corinthians ▼. 17. 



204 LECTURE VII. 

know that the decisive change referred to in the passages 
of Holy Writ, which I have read to you, is not to be 
recognised in the life of one baptized Christian in a 
thousand. 

Can you, then, with these uncompromising declara- 
tions of God's word before your eyes, be content with 
the sort of half-religion which is satisfying the world? 
Can you think that a Sabbath hour one day in the week, 
and it may be a hasty chapter of God's word upon every 
other day, are sufficient evidences of true conversion, 
while the thoughts, the heart, the life, all remain unin- 
fluenced, unimproved? That the ever-blessed Son of 
God came down on earth to lead the life of suffering and 
privation which we are now contemplating, and to die 
his death of inexpressible agony, and all to purchase to 
himself a people who should devote six-sevenths of their 
time to the service of his eternal enemies, sin, the world, 
and the devil, and be content to give the seventh portion 
grudgingly to him. 

No, if conversion be a work supernatural in its origin, 
and decisive in its effects, then most assuredly, this is 
not conversion. All is natural, perfectly natural, nothing 
supernatural here. It is natural that every individual 
should desire just so much religion as he imagines will 
satisfy God, and keep himself from " the worm that 
never dies, and the fire that never shall be quenched."* 
The supernatural effect begins, when the love of God, and 
the delight in Christ, and the desire for heaven, are all 
springing up as powerfully influential in the heart, as the 
love of sin, and the delight in this world's pleasures, and 
the desire for this world's advantages, once were. The 

♦ Mark ii. 44. 48. 



LECTURE VII. 205 

supernatural effect begins when the realities of an un- 
seen world more powerfully influence every thought, 
and motive, and desire, than the far more closer and 
more pressing realities of time and sense ; when sin be- 
comes absolutely hateful to us, and Christ proportionably 
precious, and holiness in all our ways and all our works 
unceasingly desired; when the love of God and the 
obedience to his commands, is the one great object of 
the renewed heart, the convinced conscience, the spiri- 
tually enfranchised will. 

But if such a course of half-religion as I have just re- 
ferred to, cannot be called a supernatural work, as little 
can it be called a decisive work. Where is the decision 
of that man's mind, who lives for both worlds, perhaps, 
throughout a long life, vibrating like a pendulum between 
heaven and hell, unknowing himself, unknown to all 
around him, to which of these two widely different eter- 
nities the last vibration of the pendulum shall incline. 

Brethren, " examine yourselves whether ye be in the 
faith ;"* and if, by God's grace, you have good reason 
to hope and to believe that you are ; if you have reason 
to trust that with you, conversion has been indeed a 
supernatural work, and in its effect is daily and hourly 
becoming a more decisive work, remember that you 
have nothing which you have not received ; and let the 
consciousness of this draw you still nearer with a more 
grateful heart, and a more convinced will, and a more 
determined and decided walk, to the God of vour salva- 
tion. If you have been hitherto contented with offering 
a divided obedience, let your resolution now be, in God's 
strength to " follow the Lord fully," to offer to him a 

* 2 Corinthians xiii. 5. 
18 



206 LECTURE VII. 

whole heart, to devote from this day all your powers, 
all your affections, all your energies, to him who loved 
you and gave himself for you, to purchase you as " a 
pecuhar people zealous of good works." Thus having, 
like that devoted apostle of whom we have this day 
spoken, " left all, and followed" the Saviour here, you 
shall be rendered meet, with the blessed company of the 
apostles, saints and prophets who have preceded you, to 
"follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,"* in his 
eternal kingdom. 

* Revelations xiv. 4. 



THE HISTORY 

OF 

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
JESUS CHRIST. 



SECTION III. 

FROM THE SECOND TO THE THIRD PASSOVER IIV OUR 
LORD'S MINISTRY. 



209 



// 



LECTURE I. 



St. John v. 8. 



" Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk." 



We resume the lectures at that period in the history 
of our Divine Master, which is marked by his visit to 
Jerusalem, for the purpose of keeping the second Pass- 
over after the commencement of his public ministry; 
and with which, therefore, the second year of that 
ministry begins. The first incident which occured during 
his visit, and which is recorded only by St. John, is the 
cure of the infirm man at the Pool of Bethesda; an 
incident full of instruction and interest, and to which, 
seeking the Divine aid of the Holy Spirit of God, we 
would now call your attention. 

The inspired historian having mentioned the presence 
of our Lord in Jerusalem, at this particular season, and 
the motive which brought him thither, saying, " There 
was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jeru- 
salem,"* thus proceeds to describe the place, and the 
circumstances of the miracle of the text. 

" Now there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-market, a 
pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, 

* John V. 1. 

18* 



210 LECTURE I. 

having five porchfes."* It is the opinion of Dr. Light- 
foot, that this pool had been used as a bath for persons 
under ceremonial defilement, and that the five porches 
were covered with walks, or porticoes, built for their 
convenience. " In these" porches " lay a multitude of 
impotent folk, of blind, halt, w^ithered, waiting for the 
moving of the waters. For an angel went down at a 
certain season into the pool, and troubled the water; 
whosoever then, first, after the troubling of the water, 
stepped in, was made whole, of whatsoever disease he 
had." 

It is needless to detain you upon the many conjectures 
which learned writers have ventured upon this passage 
of Scripture, rather than believe the plain and simple 
statement of the word of God itself; the manner in 
which one accounts for the medicinal virtues of the 
pool, by supposing it to have been a mineral spring: 
another by imagining that the entrails of the sheep, slain 
for sacrifice, were cast into it, and that the angel was 
only a messenger from the Sanhedrim, sent at certain 
hours to stir up the water, which had acquired, in a 
manner they do not attempt to explain, some most pow- 
erful healing properties. It is enough for the simple 
reader of Holy Writ, that, however contrary it may 
appear to human experience, the unerring word assures 
him, it was the will of God, that at particular seasons, 
the waters of this pool should be possessed of certain 
miraculous properties, communicated, as it appears, by 
a messenger from on high ; and that the first, and only 
the first person who then stepped into them, was inva- 
riably healed. Since these wonderful properties are 



• John 



LECTURE I. 211 

mentioned by no uninspired writers, it seems probable 
that they were communicated to this pool but a short 
time before the ministry of our Lord commenced, and 
were removed \^hen that ministry concluded. However 
this may be, it is certain that at the period of the inci- 
dent before us, they existed, and that the sight of the 
many suffering children of affliction, lying in these por- 
ticoes, in the daily and hourly expectation of a blessing 
which only one could enjoy, must have strongly affected 
the heart of our Redeemer. Whether the pool lay near 
the temple, as some imagine, the history does nat re- 
count, but one thing it manifests, w^hich, in a suffering 
world should never be forgotten, that let the sick and 
miserable be where they may, they cannot be out of the 
thoughts, or out of the sight, or out of the path of our 
Divine Master. His first object at Jerusalem seems to 
have been, to visit the " blind, halt, withered," who lay 
at the pool of Bethesda, uncared for and unthought of, 
perhaps, by any other human being in those vast multi- 
tudes, who assembled at the Passover, except the Lord 
Jesus Christ himself. Surely there is comfort in the 
thought, even to the most wretched and most desolate 
upon earth. The Saviour, who passed by the palaces 
of princes, sought out the porches of Bethesda. That 
lodging cannot be too poor and miserable for the 
Saviour's presence, which contains one suffering sinner. 
He who himself had not where to lay his head, will 
seek and visit you in the lowest abode of penury, if you 
will but acknowledge your need of him, and welcome 
his approach. 

"And a certain man was there which had an infirmity 
thirty and eight years."* How long and how grievous 

* John V. 5. 



212 LECTURE I. | 

a visitation, is the first comment which we are all dis- 
posed to make upon this portion of the history : far dif- 
ferent was the remark of the holy men of old, the pious 
and devoted, but as to his bodily frame, infirm and suf- 
fering, Richard Baxter ; he says in his note upon this 
verse, " How great a mercy was it, to live thirty-eight 
years under God's wholesome discipline. O my God, 
I thank thee for the like discipline of fifty-eight years ; 
how safe is this, in comparison of full prosperity and 
pleasure." 

Who but a real child of God could ever have sug- 
gested such a comment upon such an incident ! Whose 
heart among ourselves, can honestly, and as in the sight 
of God, re-echo the sentiment ! 

The sick man of whom the parable speaks, had pro- 
bably lain the longest there of all those who filled those 
porches with misery and bewailing; and the Saviour 
who knew all things, knew the length, as well as the 
depth of his distress, and apparently on that account, 
selected him as the object of his healing mercy. There 
may be, for we have met with cases such as these in our 
ministerial course, some truly penitent behever, among 
yourselves, to whom the preaching, and the counsels, 
and the prayers of minister and friends, are as unavail- 
ing to bring peace, as medicine had been to bring a cure 
to the case before us ; but take courage, you are perhaps 
only kept the longer and tried the deeper, that the hand 
of the good Physician himself may be extended to you, 
and that your spiritual heaUng may be the work of Christ 
alone : he will, in his good time, bestow, what all ordi- 
nances and all means, without him, never can, the "peace 
of God which passeth all understanding."* 

* Philippians iv. 7. 



LECTURE I. 213 

Observe we next, the manner in which our Lord calls 
forth the desire to be healed, before he performs the 
cure, " He saith unto him. Wilt thou be made whole?"* 
Could he doubt it ? Could he who knew the hearts of 
all men, be ignorant of the wTetchedness that dwelt 
within ; and had for eight and thirty years, imbittered 
to this poor suiferer, every enjoyment and every hour 
of life ? No, Jesus knew full well, all that the sick man 
wished, and all he hoped for ; but where Christ imparts 
the cure, the heart must be aroused, and the desires 
quickened, and the tongue excited to seek it. Therefore 
did he ask the question; and therefore does he now, 
even at the present hour, and to every subject of his 
healing mercy, first bestow the grace to seek the boon ; 
which, when sought for, he delights to give. 

Brethren, 1 know not how it may be with others, but 
with myself I feel, that had not he bestowed the gift, 
first bestowed the sense of my deep need, and the will 
and power to ask the remedy, I had still lain a poor, 
helpless outcast upon the brink of the waters of life, 
ignorant alike of my own fatal malady, and of the re- 
turning health which they alone impart. 

But let us for a few moments imagine the scene of 
the parable to be changed ; this Church to be the portico 
beside Bethesda's pool ; yourselves the sick and suffering 
patients ; and the disease, not infirmity, but sin ; sin 
which has corrupted every heart, and perverted every 
way, and endangered every soul. Suppose the Saviour 
to enter this portico, and to apply himself to you indi- 
vidually, and with the same question which he addressed 
to the man before us, " Wilt thou be made whole V^ 

* John V. 6. 



214 LECTURE I. 

Are you quite certain what would be your reply ? Are 
you sure that there is no one here, who when he 
found, that to be " made whole'' of sin, implied the 
destruction of its reigning, as well as its condemning 
power ; the breaking off of many a dear connexion, the 
denial of many a sinful pleasure, the discontinuance of 
many a vicious habit, which for a long, long season, 
perhaps for eight and thirty years, has been as deeply 
rooted in your heart, as this man's malady in his con- 
stitution, is there no one here, who like the rich young 
man, would turn away in sorrow, prefer his sin to his 
Saviour, and refuse even spiritual health itself, at so 
high a cost? Alas! we fear that few assemblies, even 
of Christian worshippers, but contain some persons such 
as these. Remember, then, that we are painting no 
imaginary scene, when we compare the ordinances of 
God, with the healing waters of Bethesda. For, never 
are the doors of God's house opened, that the waters of 
salvation do not flow ; never is the word of life truly 
preached, that the Spirit of God does not ^^ move upon 
the face of those waters,"^ to impart to them the heal- 
ing qualities, of which not one alone, but all, yes all, 
without exception and without reserve, may be par- 
takers. Whenever, therefore, you set your foot within 
the walls of the temple of God, the great Lord of the 
fountain asks of all, of each, " Wilt thou be made 
whole ?" And what is your reply ? How many, who 
in heart exclaim. Lord 1 am whole, I need not a physi- 
cian. How many, who shrink from the healing process, 
and prefer the malady to the cure. How few, who 
reply at once, " Lord, I am distressed, undertake for 
me, and do what seemeth the best." 

* Genesis i. 2. 



LECTURE L 215 

My brethren, were we half as conscious of our spi- 
ritual aihuents, as of our bodily diseases ; were we a 
thousandth part as anxious to be healed of the former, 
as to be cured of the latter, long ere this, there would 
not have been one " blind, halt, withered," within our 
temple, or a single feeble one within our walls. May 
God of his tender mercy teach us deeply to feel our 
maladies, as the first steptowads their removal, and our 
healthfulness. 

" The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no 
man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the 
pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down 
before me."* 

How good an evidence is it that sickness, and trial, 
and trouble, have had their perfect work, when the 
pride of the heart is humbled, and the fretfulness and 
complaining of the lips are silenced, and we can dwell 
upon our sorrows without one repining word, or one dis- 
trustful thought. The sick man before us, does not breathe 
a syllable against the hard-heartedness of his fellow-men; 
that of all the thousands in that crowded city, not one 
had leisure enough, or love enough, to sanctify his visit 
to the Passover, by such an obvious act of mercy as the 
lifting this poor sufferer into the healing pool. He simply 
tells the story of his own wretchedness, and the selfish- 
ness of those around him, in these aflfecting words, " I 
have no man," and "another steppeth down before me." 
The utmost that he dared to hope was, that now, at 
length, he had encountered one, who could feel for 
other's woes, and who might, perhaps, be intending to 
seat himself beside him, and there remain and watch 

* John V. 7. 



216 LECTURE I. 

the coming of the supernatural visitant, and place him 
first within the troubled waters. But Jesus had far 
higher things than this in store for him ; he had a cure 
unexpected, sudden and complete for the infirmity of 
his body, followed, as we have every reason to believe, 
by the renewal of his soul. " Jesus saith unto him. 
Rise, take up thy bed and walk, and immediately 
the man was made whole, and took up his bed and 
walked."* 

So true it is, that he with whom we have to do, is 
not only able, but willing, " to do exceeding abundantly, 
above all that we ask or think."f 

There is, however, yet another portion of the history 
to be considered, which will portray the duty of man, 
as distinctly as the former part has shown the loving 
kindness of the Lord. 

No sooner had the healed man obeyed the command 
of Christ, by carrying his bed upon the Sabbath day at 
the imminent peril of his life, for such a breach of . the 
ceremonial observance of that Divine Institution, than 
the Jews fiercely interrogated him, by whose authority 
he was thus transgressing. The man whose knowledge 
of our Lord, was as might be expected, most imperfect, 
still felt that he who could work so wonderful a miracle 
by his own power, must certainly possess a right to 
obedience of those he healed; and this, indeed, was 
agreeable even to the dogmas of many among the Jews 
themselves who justified a prophet in infringing the rest 
of the Sabbath, by the example of Joshua surrounding 
Jericho, for seven successive days, with the ark. The 
man who was healed, therefore, acknowledging, what 

* John V. 8, 9. t Ephesians iii. 20. 



LECTURE I. 217 

the Jews denied, that Jesus was a prophet, replied at 
once, as sufficient authority for the act, and sufficient 
justification of it, "He that made me whole, the same 
said unto me. Take up thy bed, and walk/' How 
powerful is the influence of the Lord Jesus Christ, upon 
the heart which has once been really visited by his 
compassion and love. . This healed man ventured even 
his life, rather than disobey the word of him who healed 
him. When on the great and coming day all the 
generations of men shall stand together, how will the 
" maimed, and the halt, and the blind," who, for one 
act of mercy and compassion, obeyed their Divine 
Redeemer, without a feeling of hesitation or distrust, 
put us to shame, who after countless instances of 
mercy, far greater, and far higher, than they were 
ever blessed with, follow him so distantly, and obey 
him so reluctantly and coldly. The only substantial 
proof that you ever can give, that the love of Christ 
has touched your heart, is this, — Has it left the stamp 
of true subjection to him there ? Are you not satisfied 
with saying, " Lord, Lord," but are you doing the 
things which he commands you? How much profes- 
sion of religion is there at the present day, where this 
first and surest fruit is wanting. Say not, deceive not 
yourself by thinking that Christ has ever visited you, if 
a holy, consistent obedience has not been the result. If 
you truly know the Lord Jesus, if you have indeed re- 
ceived healing and mercy at his hands, you would 
hazard life itself rather than habitually break even the 
least of his commandments. For be assured, whatever 
be your profession of religion, the heart possesses still 
its native hardness, if the bright beaming of a Saviour's 
love upon it has failed so to soften it, that it may be 

19 



218 LECTURE I. 

moulded into some degree of conformity to his com- 
mands, or resemblance to himself; the soul still lies in 
all its natural dulness, if when those rays have fallen upon 
it, it has reflected back no portion of the love which it 
received. 

The man whom we have just seen condemned as a 
Sabbath-breaker, for carrying his bed, in obedience to 
him who healed him, at once evinced the falsehood of 
the allegation, by going straightway to the temple, to 
praise the Lord for all that had been so w^onderfully 
done for him. It was in that house of God, that Jesus 
met with him, and spoke those words which Ave may 
reasonably hope were blessed to the conversion of his 
soul, " Behold, thou art made whole. Sin no more, lest 
a worse thing come unto thee."* 

When our Lord granted the first manifestation of his 
love in the healing of this poor man, he found him igno- 
rant, and he left him ignorant, of the very name and 
quality of his benefactor. But though he knew not 
Christ, he knew the way to the temple, and he not only 
knew, but performed the duty of carrying thither his 
thank-oflfering to God. Behold here the manner in 
which, while acting according to the light we possess, 
our God fulfils his promise, "Whosoever hath, to him 
shall be given, and he shall have more abundance."]- 
The Saviour completed the mercy in the temple, which 
he had begun at the pool : while the man who wist not 
who it was, when he was healed, discovered while he 
prayed and praised, that it was " Jesus who had made 
him whole." This well agrees with the gracious method 
in which God ordinarily deals with his creatures. " If 

* John T. 14 t Matthew xiii. 12. 



I 



LECTURE I. 219 



any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine,"* is one of the most consolatory of the unerring 
promises of God. Never are there such scriptural 
grounds for believing that you will be brought, in 
God's good time, to the fulness of the knowledge, and 
faith, and hope, that are in Christ Jesus, as when en- 
gaged in performing, as far as it is known to you, the 
revealed will of your God. It is a blessed thing to re- 
flect how many in every generation, as it passes through 
this state of suffering and probation, are first brought to 
feel their need of something better than this world can 
offer, by the pressures of affliction, or the trials of sick- 
ness. How many who receiving at those distressing 
seasons, healing and grace, are led on in all holy obe- 
dience, step by step, from the bed of sickness, to the 
temple ; from the word of God, to the Son of God ; 
from bodily health, to spiritual cure ; until all that the 
Saviour has done and suffered for them is gradually 
unfolded to their hearts, and they have " followed on to 
know the Lord,"f their light shining more and more, 
untfl it reaches the perfect day. 

But, brethren, if it be a blessed thing to know, that 
these are the steps by which thousands and tens of 
thousands in every generation ascend from earth to 
heaven, surely it is a deeply painful thing to know also, 
that these are steps which thousands never tread ; that 
of all the multitudes who are daily going down to death, 
vast indeed is the proportion by whom we fear the up- 
ward path is untrodden and unknown. 

One word then only, in conclusion, to you to whom 
the mercies of a bed of sickness have been vouchsafed 

* John vii. 17. t Hosea yi. 3. 



220 LECTURE I. 

in vain. You have suffered from the chastening hand 
of your God, and by his heaUng power have been raised 
up, where many have fallen to arise no more. And are 
you still careless, thoughtless, disobedient ? Do the giddy 
throng, who smile at that which makes all nature serious, 
who postpone all deep and earnest care of the immortal 
treasure with which God has trusted them, see no one 
more giddy, more thoughtless, than yourself? Are all 
the vows and all the prayers of that sick room forgotten, 
or remembered only when the breach of them reminds 
you for a passing moment that they are registered on 
high ? It is a fearful thing to trifle with God's judgments, 
but tenfold more fearful is it, to trifle with his mercies. 
When sickness and sorrow once more revisit you, when 
you attempt to betake yourself again to him from whom 
you have before found heahng and consolation, shall you 
be surprised that though you seek him, he is no where to 
be found ] Shall you wonder that your prayer has no 
wings, your bed of sickness no consolations ! Alas ! 
this also is in the ordinary course of God's dealing with 
his creatures ; for has he not himself said, "Whosoever 
hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he 
seemeth to have."* Every mercy received is but the 
seed-corn which the heavenly Husbandman scatters : if 
there be no fruit, no harvest, the barren field cannot re- 
pine that no future seed-time shall ever visit it. It is 
unreasonable to complain, if broken vows, and forgotten 
prayers, and unrequited mercies, are followed by a Spirit 
who has ceased to strive, a Saviour who does not inter- 
cede, a God who has withdrawn himself. Tedious as 
may have been your former trials, long and painful your 

* Luke viii. 18. 



LECTURE I. 221 

illnesses, severe your sufferings, the heaviest of them is 
but " a light affliction," in comparison of those which 
God has in store for them that trifle with his mercies. 
We perhaps are able to imagine few things more dis- 
tressing than eight and thirty years of bed-ridden infir- 
mity; yet what are they, when compared with a century 
of agony; and what is that when put in competition with 
an eternity of wo 1 

May a gracious God grant that we may each, and 
all, be so led by his mercies, as never to need his 
threatenings, and never to be visited by his judg- 
ments; may he vouchsafe us this chief of blessings, 
for the merits, and through the intercession, of Christ 
Jesus, our Lord, to whom be all the glory now and 
for ever. 



19* 



222 



LECTURE II. 



John v. 25. 



" Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is^ 
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they 
that hear shall live." 

It does not come within the intention, and could not 
possibly fall within the scope of these lectures, to ex- 
pound verse by verse, and word by word, the discourses 
of our Lord ; yet are there some striking and remark- 
able passages in his mortal sojourn, which can in no 
other manner be brought before you. The incident 
which follows the miracle at the pool of Bethesda is 
unquestionably one of these. 

Our divine Saviour had, as Lord of the Sabbath, 
commanded the man whom he had healed to carry 
his bed upon the Sabbath day; this, as we have seen, 
excited the indignation of the Jews, who, having been 
told by the healed man, that '' it was Jesus who had 
made him whole,"* "persecuted Jesus, and sought to 
slay him, because he had done these things on the Sab- 
bath day." 

It is the opinion of some of the best commentators 

* John V. 15, 16. 



LECTURE II. 223 

and is rendered extremely probable by the context, that 
the persecution here alluded to, was not the lawless 
persecution of ruffians desirous of putting the Lord 
Jesus Christ to a violent death, but the judicial perse- 
cution of men who were determined to slay him, as a 
Sabbath-breaker, by the acknowledged law^ of the land, 
and for this purpose carried him before the Sanhedrim. 
The declarations of our Lord, therefore, which com- 
mence at the seventeenth verse and continue to the end 
of the chapter, are supposed to form his defence before 
the Sanhedrim, or great council of the Jews; and con- 
tain, as might be expected from such a defence, some 
of the most striking and convincing testimonies to his 
Divinity, which the incarnate Son of God ever pro- 
nounced. 

On this account, the present lecture cannot be more 
profitably employed, than in dwelling upon some of the 
most astonishing and satisfactory of these testimonies ; 
forming, as they unquestionably do, a body of evidence 
upon the Godhead of our blessed Saviour, and I might 
almost add, a body of divinity upon his doctrines, which 
is not to be rivalled in the whole gospel history. 

St. Chrysostom long since observed, that while there 
are shallows in Holy Writ in which the lamb may 
w^ade, there are also depths in which the elephant must 
swim. If we find that this discourse of our Divine Sa- 
viour will carry us into these deep waters, let us not be 
discouraged ; human reason soon gets beyond its depth 
and loses its footing, when it attempts to wade the 
ocean of eternal truth, but faith will be supported in 
depths where unassisted reason would assuredly sink; 
and though the worldly wise man and the intellectually 
proud man may stumble and fall in those dark waters, 



I 



224 LECTURE 11. 

which we are approaching, the truly humble child of 
God, even though his lot be cast among the most igno- 
rant, will find, by the helping hand of God's good Spirit, 
firm footing and secure walking upon the surface, not- 
withstanding the mighty and undiscovered depths which 
lie beneath. 

The remarkable defence of our Lord, to which I have 
referred, is divided into two parts. The first occupying \ 
from the seventeenth to the thirtieth verse of the chapter 
inclusive ; containing a collection of proofs of the co- 
equality in power, and wisdom, and honour, of theii 
eternal Son with the eternal Father. The second part,;] 
extending from the thirty-first verse to the end of the 
chapter, containing a series of testimonies from wit- ij 
nesses whom none could doubt, or contravene ; viz. 
John the Baptist; the miracles of Christ; the voice from 
heaven ; the Scriptures of unerring truth ; all of which 
are adduced by our Lord, and furnish the body of his 
evidence. 

Such are the contents of this astonishing chapter; 
the latter portion of which I have just mentioned is so 
plain that it will be needless for us to dwell upon it, but 
the former is unquestionably obscure, and yet so rich 
an inheritance to the believer, and so valuable an 
armoury for the young Christian, that we shall confine 
our observations exclusively to its life-giving truths. 

Proceed we, then, under the teaching of the Divine 
Spirit, to examine this instructive portion of our Lord's 
defence before the Sanhedrim. The Jews had no 
sooner preferred their charge of Sabbath-breaking, 
because our Divine Saviour had performed his miracles 
on that sacred day, than, as we read, our Lord imme- 
diately commenced his defence by this remarkable 



LECTURE II. 22$ 

assertion, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."^ 
How great a mystery is involved in this brief sentence ! 
On other occasions our Lord contented himself with 
asserting that acts of necessity and love w^ere never 
to be reckoned as breaches of the Sabbath day, but 
here, before the great council of the nation, he takes a 
Tar different, and far higher stand, he acknov^ledges, 
according to their viev^r of it, a breach of the Sabbath, 
and then proceeds at once to justify the apparent trans- 
gression. His defence is as though he had said, " If 
w^orks of every kind will break this hallowed day, then 
am I guilty, and then have I been guilty throughout all 
time, for united to God the Father from all eternity in 
essence, divinity, and power, I am united with him also 
in work. Hitherto, throughout four thousand years, 
my Father and I have worked incessantly upon this 
hallowed day; the sun has at our word, continued his 
mighty journey uninterruptedly; the sea has never 
ceased to flow; all nature, at our bidding, has gone 
forward; all the works of Providence and grace have 
held on their unwearied course ; this is our doing, our 
work, to which no single Sabbath has seen an intermis- 
sion ; and shall I, who have ' worked hitherto,' now be 
accused for performing a single miracle of love upon 
this hallowdti day V^ 

Such a reply, as our Lord had doubtless foreseen, at 
once not only redoubled the rage and animosity of his 
persecutors, but changed the nature of their charge. 
They had brought him before the Sanhedrim for Sab- 
bath-breaking, but they now proceed to try him for 
blasphemy. " Therefore the Jews sought the more to 

* John V. 17. 



226 LECTURE 11. 

kill him," says the evangelist, "because he not only had 
broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his 
Father, making himself equal with God."* The Jews, 
therefore, evidently understood the words as I have just 
endeavoured to explain them: and so far was Jesus 
from any attempt to remove this impression, which he 
unquestionably would, had it been false, that he returns 
an answer to the new charge of blasphemy, insisting 
far more plainly upon his divinity, and speaking far 
more strongly upon it, than he had ever done before. 
In fact, from this point the defence is one continued 
series of proofs of this first of all revealed doctrines to 
the soul of man, the co-equality and co-eternity of the 
Father and the Son. " Then answered Jesus and said 
unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can 
do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do ; 
for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the 
Son Ukewise."! 

The first impression of these words upon the reader, 
often is, that they imply an inferiority in the Son, and 
that our Lord's intention probably was, as it undoubt- 
edly is, in some portions of his history, to mark the 
inferiority of the man Christ Jesus, to God, the ever- 
lasting Father. 

But nothing of this kind is his intention* here. The 
assertion is simply made, to strengthen and to fill up 
the outline of a truth so mysterious, that the human 
mind can never, in its present state, fully appreciate it, 
and never without the direct operation of the Spirit of 
God, rightly receive it. When our Lord says, "the 
Son can do nothing of himself,"{ he implies that such is 

* John T. 18. t John v. 19. t Idem. 



LECTURE II. 227 

the entireness of the union between the Father and the 
Son, so completely is the Son " very God of very God," 
that all that the one Person of the Deity doeth, is done 
by the other, and therefore that nothing can be said to 
be done by the Son, as separate from the Father. And 
yet, while one in essence, so completely are they two 
in person, that " the Son doeth what he seeth the Father 
do," a word adopted merely to meet our finite compre- 
hension, and not in the least intending to imply that the 
works of the Son are copies of the Father, or follow 
them in order of time, (for this the subsequent verses 
and all Scripture would disprove,) but to express, as 
clearly as our imperfect diction can express, the in- 
timate communication of nature, will, wisdom, and 
power, between the eternal Father and " the only be- 
gotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father."^ 
There, with a oneness of nature, will, and knowledge, 
which far surpasses all understanding, he hath known 
all things which God knoweth, and even all things 
which God seeth, and done all things which God doeth, 
throughout the ages of a fathomless eternity. 

Our Lord enforced this awful and incomprehensible 
truth in the following verses, by the declarations that 
" the Son quickeneth whom he will,"t and that he 
judges whom he will, not that the Father has in any 
sense divested himself of the power of quickening or 
judging, but that it is communicated, by an indissoluble 
union, to the Son, and thus made known by him to man, 
that as our Lord declares, " all men should honour the 
Son even as they honour the Father."J Having, then, 
established this fact, upon these incontrovertible decla- 



* John i. 18. t John V. 21. J John t. 23. 



I 



228 LECTURE II. 

rations of that God who cannot lie, our Lord proceeds 
to build upon them these additional proofs of his di- 
vinity, which involve some of the highest and most 
mysterious doctrines of salvation. 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth ray 
word, and beHeveth on him that sent me, hath everlast- 
ing hfe, and shall not come into condemnation, but is 
passed from death unto life."* i 

Learn from this, that the one great object of all true 
Christianity is, to bring you to hear Christ's word, i. e. to 
receive the everlasting gospel, to be made partakers of 
that salvation which he hved to promulgate, and died to 
seal. " Faith," says the Holy Ghost, " cometh by hearing, 
and hearing by the w^ord of God."f Faith we know, is, 
as every other Christian grace, the gift of God; but this 
is the manner in which it is usually wrought in us by the 
Spirit of God, through the hearing of the revealed word 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The work of salvation, how- 
ever, as regards our individual reception of it, is not 
completed inhearing and receiving Christ's word ; there 
is a step, and a very important one, yet beyond, which 
is most plainly developed in the words before us. " He 
that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent \ 
me, hath everlasting life." Observe, then, the great 
end and object of faith in Jesus Christ. It must, by the 
power of the Holy Ghost, lead you directly through the 
Son, to God the Father, a God in covenant with you 
through Jesus Christ ; a God who has, even from the 
foundation of the world, been reconciled to all his crea- 
tures, but who now receives you, who come to him, 
through Christ, as reconciled to him. 

♦John ▼.24. t Romans X. 17. 



LECTURE n. 229 

M^i^k, then, and from your inmost soul bless God for 
hi]^ mercy while you do so, mark the present and imme- 
diate benefit which you obtain by thus coming to God* 
He who so comes^ ** hath," saith our Lord, " everlasting 
life, and shall not come into condemnation^ but is passed 
from death unto life/'* " Is passed ;" how unspeakable 
a mercy> how glorious a privilege ; the believer waits 
not for the day of doom to determine whether he 
shall stand at the right hand or at the left of his 
returning Saviour. He has obtained present pardon, 
present peace, and present joy. The world is crucified 
to him, and he is crucified unto the world; God is 
reconciled to him, and he is now reconciled to God* 
His hope is not an uncertain hope^ but that which the 
apostle so well described^ when he said, " Which hope 
we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stead- 
fast, and which entereth into that within the veil."f 

It is a delightful and blessed thing to speak and to 
hear of privileges such as these. But, alas ! many, how 
many are there who both hear and speak of them, who 
never realize them in their own consciences, or partake 
of them in their own souls. Let me, then, this day, 
inquire, how is it with yourselves ? Have you heard, 
have you believed, have you received, these Hfe-giving 
truths ? All depends, as you have seen, upon the first 
step in this most important series. Have you rightly, 
effectually, savingly heard? I do not simply allude to 
the hearing of the outward ear, but of the inmost heart. 
4-re you doubtful in what manner to reply to so infi- 
nitely important an inquiry; are you conscious, as I 
trust you are, that unassisted you cannot hear; that the 
hearing ear, as well as the believing heart, is entirely 

* John T. 24* t Hebrews y'u 10. 

20 



230 LECTURE II. 

the work of God's free grace ? Is any one annong you 
inwardly saying, Would that I nriight thus hear to the 
saving of my soul, but alas! with me the threatening of 
the prophet seems almost to be fulfilled, " This people's 
heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, 
and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they 
should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and 
should understand with their heart, and should be con- 
verted, and I should heal them."* Then, with what 
feelings of gratitude will you receive the next great 
declaration of your Redeemer, in the words of the text, 
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, 
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the 
Son of God, and they that hear shall live." 

Let us for a moment inquire. Who are these dead, 
of vfc^hom our Lord with so much certainty and such 
authority predicates that they "shall hear?" Think 
you that it means they who have been committed to 
the kindred dust? No, these are afterwards spoken of 
expressly in the twenty-eighth verse. They also shall, 
no doubt, one day hear, but these dead men were to 
hear the very hour in which the Lord Jesus spake these 
words before the Sanhedrim ? For is not this his own 
declamtion, " the hour is coming, and now is ?" He 
could not, therefore, allude to the inhabitants of the 
grave, who shall hear hereafter. They to whom he 
alluded then, are, they can be none other, the spiritually 
dead, " the dead in trespasses and sins."t You, breth- 
ren, you, and I, and all men, either are, or have been 
among their numbers. How unspeakably encouraging, 
then, is the declaration. However dull may be our 
ears to hear, however hard our hearts to understand, 
we cannot go beyond the metaphor here adopted by our 

* Isaiah vi. 10 ; Matthew xiii. 15. t Ephesians ii. 1. 



LECTURE IL 231 

Lord; we cannot be more insensible than the dead; and 
yet even they shall hear. Imagine, then, the very worst 
state in which your fears can place you, as regards the 
spiritual welfare of your soul, viz. : that you are at the 
present moment among the spiritually dead. Then the 
promise before us applies expressly to yourself Only, 
would we inquire, are you willing to hear ? By which 
we mean, such hearing as includes reception, belief, 
and obedience. Be assured that you " shall hear." 
Neither evil men nor evil spirits, shall frustrate the work 
of your Divine Redeemer, or make it of none effect to 
your soul. ** The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God, and they that hear shall live." He shall bestow upon 
you the hearing ear, and with it the renewed and living 
heart. " For, as the Father hath life in himself, so hath 
he given to the Son to have life in himself"^ liife spi- 
ritual, life temporal, life eternal, all laid up in Christ 
Jesus, the grand depositary of the life of God's people 
throughout all ages. 

" Your life then is hid with Christ in God ;"f but not 
so hidden, that the eye of faith cannot see it, and the 
hand of faith cannot reach it, and the prayer of faith 
cannot draw it down. No, it is " your life," though it 
is hidden in Christ Jesus ; it is hidden for you, thanks 
be to God, not from you. It is concealed only as re- 
gards your enemies ; it is treasured up as regards your- 
self. Be then no longer without this richest gift which 
God himself has ever offered to bestow. Put forth your 
hand this day, and pluck these fruits of the tree of life^ 
and eat, and live for ever. 

You have, perhaps, entered this house, a son of Adam, 
a lost and perishing sinner, an heir of death, corruption, 
and condemnation. The blame is yours and the folly 

* John T. 26. t Colossians iii. 3. 



232 LECTURE II. 

yours, and the sin and its punishment will be yours, if 
you leave it not a child of God, a reconciled saint, an 
inheritor of his kingdom of glory. Effectual calling, 
spiritual knowledge, pardon, justification, sanctification, 
and finally, glorification, are all proffered you, if you 
will come at once, hearing, receiving, loving, and obey- 
ing the Lord Jesus Christ, for has he not himself said, 
without a single exception or reserve, " They that hear 
shall live." Yes, brethren, so hearing, you can never 
die. Death is disarmed, Satan is vanquished, Heaven 
is won. How delightful, how encouraging is the whole 
scope of this wonderful address ! I feel myself so over- 
powered by its fulness, so overwhelmed by its richness, 
its abundance, the exceeding length, and depth, and 
breadth, and height, of the love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge, and yet of which some of the brightest 
glimpses that ever shone upon the soul of man, break 
forth from the declarations we have been considering, 
that I am constrained to cry out with the prophet and 
the apostle of old, **0 Lord God, behold I cannot 
speak, for I am a child."* " Who is sufficient for these 
things?"! Probably some such feelings of deep and 
mute astonishment as must visit the soul of every re- 
flecting man, w^hen hstening to these wonderful declara* 
tions, were manifested by the members of the Sanhedrim 
while they heard them flowing from the lips of our 
Divine Redeemer himself; for we find him immediately 
afterwards, and as if replying to some signs or words 
of wonder from his audience, thus expressing himself: 
"Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which 
all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall 
come forth, they that have done good, unto the resur- 

* Jeremiah i. 6. t 2 Corinthians ii. 16. 



LECTURE II. 233 

rection of life ; and they that have done evil unto the 
resurrection of damnation."* As though he had said, 
^' Marvel not that I now^ manifest a power which none 
of woman born has ever yet possessed ; that I have Hfe 
at my bestowal, and that the spiritually dead receive it 
when they hear my voice;" what is this, compared with 
the appalling fact, that not a child of Adam who has 
ever yet descended to the grave, but shall one day hear 
this self-same voice now sounding in your ears, and 
when he hears shall live. 

My brethren, if you have been — but what Christian 
can have been — unmoved by declarations such as we 
this day have reviewed, what think you of the great 
and awful truth before us now I " The hour is coming," 
saith our God, when the voice of Jesus shall burst the 
sepulchre, when every grave shall be riven asunder, 
and every spot upon this wide world's surface shall 
be revisited for a moment by him who lies beneath it. 
Called by that voice, you shall yourself come forth, 
your body and soul for ever re-united, and accompa- 
nied by the multitudes who lie around you, shall pass 
upward to the judgment seat. That " great white 
throne"! of the descending Saviour, before which all 
the generations of men, from the first man Adam to the 
last of his descendants, who shall enter the world, at 
the very hour of that world's dissolution, shall one and 
all, be re-assembled. But when there, you shall stand 
alone ; a gathering world around you, and yet not one 
to help, not one to shield you from your Judge ; as 
much alone, as if no other ear were open to his voice, 
no other heart laid bare before his eve. Then shall be 
brought to view all unrepented, unforgiven sins, all 

* John. V. 22, 29. t Revelation xx. U. 

20* 



234 LECTURE II. 

words, all thoughts, all actions, which from your cradle 
to your grave shall have dishonoured God, done despite 
to the efforts of his striving Spirit, and poured contempt 
upon the atoning sacrifice of his blessed Son. And for 
what purpose shall such additional agony be inflicted 
upon those, who throughout eternity shall never again 
behold the face of God after that day has closed ? To 
stamp that burning shame upon the sinner's cheek, that 
brand of deep remorse upon the sinner's brow, which 
after ages never shall eradicate ; to justify, before men 
and angels, the sentence which a righteous Saviour shall 
at that coming hour pronounce ; and to leave every 
condemned and hopeless sinner utterly speechless ; to 
deprive him even of the miserable gratification, that it 
was an unjust decree of a partial God which consigned 
him to the dreadful fate from which he shall for ever 
^nd for ever suffer. Can you anticipate such a scene 
without one honest, self-inquiring thought, " What is the 
part which I shall bear upon that coming day ?" Let 
the statement of divine truth which you have now heard, 
assist you in your reply. God hath committed all judg- 
ment unto the Son, for the express purpose, " that all 
men should honour the Son, even as they honour the 
Father/' Are you so honouring the Lord Jesus Christ ? 
Acknowledging yourselves as not your own, but his 
who has bought you with his precious blood ? If you 
are, then are you now among those dead who have 
hoard the voice of the Son of God, bringing to them 
that spiritual life here, which is the sure and only fore- 
taste of eternal life hereafter ; then shall you be among 
those tenants of the grave, who, having done good, 
having brought forth the fruits of the spiritual life of 
which they were partakers, shall, when they hear that 
well-known voice, come forth to the resurrection of life. 



LECTURE II. 235 

But is there no other feeling with which we may an- 
ticipate the mysteries and glories of that day ? no other 
thought awakened in our heart by this most awful de- 
claration,- " All that are in the graves shall hear his 
voice, and shall come forth V' Blessed be God, there 
is that which as nothing earthly ever could awaken, so 
nothing short of heaven itself shall bring the full accom- 
plishment, the perfect and unspeakable fruition. It is 
the anticipation of all that that voice shall be, and all 
that it shall bring to us, if we are among the blessed 
number of God's dear, and pardoned, and holy children. 
It will be no new, no stranger's voice to us upon that 
coming day. When the nev^ly awakened ear catches, 
for the first time, the sound of the Bridegroom's cry,* 
every accent, every word will be in the well-known, 
well-remembered tones of our best, our dearest friend. 
The first feeling of our souls will be, as our bodies rise 
from out of the dust, " This is the self-same voice which 
I once heard when dead in trespasses and sins ; and 
when I heard I lived. This is the self-same voice which 
often, oh how often, during my earthly pilgrimage, 
cheered me on the bed of sickness, comforted me in 
the day of trouble, strengthened me in the hour of temp- 
tation, was my guide, my counsellor, my friend. And 
shall I fear it now ? No ! Let me yet hear it once 
again, at thy right hand, O God, perfecting all that 
concerneth me, finishing thine own work, completing 
thine own glory> and sealing my everlasting happiness." 

If the word of God be true, that desire shall be grant- 
ed, for every believing and obeying child of God shall 
one day hear that self-same voice pronounce, " Come, 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you from the foundation of the world. "f 

* See Matthew xxv. 6. t Matthew xxv. 34. 



236 



LECTURE IIL 



Luke vi. 12, 13. 



" And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a moun- 
tain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And 
when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of 
them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles." 



The glorious defence before the Sanhedrim, which 
we considered in the last lecture, being concluded, we 
find our Lord withdrawing himself from Jerusalem, 
and shortly afterwards engaged in the important work 
of the election of the twelve apostles. 

How deeply instructive is the lesson which every 
record of the preparation of Jesus, for the most impor- 
tant labours of his ministry presents to us. " It came: 
to pass, in those days, that he went out into a mountain 
to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." 
Subject, as our Divine Maker unquestionably was, to 
all the innocent infirmities of our nature, how unsparing 
was he of himself, how regardless of his own comfort 
and gratification, thus to occupy in prayer the whole 
night which was to precede a day of unexampled labour. 

What a sublime and striking picture is here presented 
to us, of the incarnate Son ; withdrawn from the noise 
and tumult of the cities and the haunts of men, amid the 



LECTURE III. 237 

silence of the night, and the desolation of that mountain 
scene, holding converse with the ineffable Jehovah ; all 
nature hushed in still repose, as if unwilling to interrupt 
the wonderful communion ; while hour after hour of 
darkness passed away, and still the unwearied prayer 
winged upward its happy flight, from the perfect purity 
of God the Son below, to the not more perfect purity of 
God the Father upon his throne. What a n ighty, what 
an almighty prayer must have then gone up before the 
Eternal One, embracing not merely the chosen few, who, 
on to-morrow's dawn, were to become the near compa- 
nions of their Lord, but their successors and followers 
throughout all time. It is no vain presumption, to believe 
that not the humblest messenger who has ever since been 
sent to preach ^^on earth peace and good-will to men,"* 
but found a place in that most solemn intercession ; and 
that for him were sought, during that hallowed night, 
the grace, and strength, and wisdom, which of himself 
he could not have. Most surely may we beUeve, that 
while the great Head of the Church w^as thus laying 
all the difficulties, and all the ignorance, and all the 
need, of those whom on the morrow he was about to 
constitute the authorized ministers of his gospel, his 
omniscient mind embraced within the petitions of that 
prayer, every individual in every age, who is *^ inwardly 
moved by the Holy Ghost to serve God," for the pro- 
moting of his glory, and the edifying of his people, and 
is " truly called according to the will of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, to the ministry of the Church."f 

" All night" did our Lord continue in that mysterious 
intercourse with the eternal Father ; an example of per- 

* Luke ii. 14. t Ordination Service of the Church of England. 



238 LECTURE IIL 

severing prayer, which although, as regards the peculiar 
nature of the communication, it must ever remain far 
above the attainment of the Christian, still furnishes ih 
its perseverance, a high and holy lesson for the imita- 
tion of the Church, as long as she continues mihtant 
here below. It is not by the short and transient appli- 
cations to a throne of grace, which we are too apt to 
dignify with the name of prayer, that we can hope to 
be qualified for seasons of peculiar trial, temptation, or 
labour. This can alone be done by dwelling near the 
mercy-seat ; by sitting, as it were, upon the footstool* 
of the throne ; by daily, hourly, constantly sending forth 
those winged messengers of the heart, the secret, silent, 
swiftly flying thoughts, which while they form, like the 
Patriarch's ladde •, an uninterrupted line of ascending 
intreaties to the Most High, form also a channel for his 
descending mercies to our souls. " And, when it was 
day, he called unto him his disciples ; and of them he 
chose twelve, whom also he named apostles. Simon 
(whom he also named Peter) and Andrew his brother, 
James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and 
Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon called 
Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James, and Judas 
Iscariot, which also was the traitor."t 

The purpose for which the twelve were selected, is 
thus explained in the parallel passage in St. Mark's 
gospel, " He ordained twelve, that they should be with 
him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and 
to have power to heal sickness, and to cast out devils."J 

How great their privilege, how glorious their distinc- 
tion, to perform such works as man before had never 

* See 1 Chronicles xxviii. 2. t Luke iv. 12, 13. t Mark iii. 14. 



LECTURE III. 239 

done ; and to preach to the lowest, the humblest, the 
poorest, the good tidings " sent down from heaven ; 
which things the angels desire to look into."* Yet was 
it not merely these blessings, great and distinguishing as 
they were, of the chosen followers of our Lord, which 
formed the highest subject of their hearts' rejoicing : it 
was the far nobler privilege conveyed in the simple ex- 
pressions, ^' that they should be with him."f It was for 
this that they were especially ordained ; " He ordained 
twelve that they should be with him ;" and it was to this 
that in after days we find them looking back " with joy 
unspeakable, and full of glory."J Hear only the beloved 
apostle referring to these highly privileged seasons, and 
this most blessed intercourse, after an interval of more 
than fifty years ; " That which was from the beginning, 
which we have heard, which we have seen with our 
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have 
handled of the word of life,"§ is the manner in which 
he delights to designate the Saviour of the world. 
While we find Peter, with a very similar feeling, speak- 
ing of the season when he was " with him in the holy 
mount,"|| and of " the time, that the Lord Jesus went in 
and out among us. "If It was by being thus continually 
with Jesus, that they were to learn from his own lips his 
blessed and life-giving doctrines ; that they were to see 
with their own eyes, the meekness, and patience, and 
forbearance, and humility, and love, which the inter- 
course of every day would manifest, but which no tongue 
could truly tell ; and by walking daily at his side, and 
treading hourly in his footsteps, that they might be quali- 
fied, as far as men could ever be, to transmit some faint 

* 1 Peter i. 12. f Mark iii. 14. % 1 Peter i. 8. 

$ 1 John i. h II 2 Peter i. 18. % Acts i. 21. 



240 LECTURE III. 

expresssions of " the mind which was in Christ Jesus/'* 
as the heritage of the Church for ever. 

Brethren, pray that your ministers, pray that all th« 
ministers of the gospel of Christ, may bear upon their 
hearts the purpose for which their predecessors were 
especially ordained, " that they should be with Jesus ;" 
for be assured that it is in proportion, and most accu- 
rately in proportion, as we fulfil this first, great object 
of our calling, that all others will be attained and 
sanctified. Had the apostles wandered far away from 
him who called them, had they visited him at distant 
intervals, thought of him but seldom, conversed with 
him but rarely, walked with him but occasionally, 
what would they have known of " the mind that was 
in Christ Jesus ?"f What can we know of him if 
our cold and lifeless communion be confined to stated 
periods, or public services ; in fact, if we are not ever 
with him ? Pray, therefore, that we may hold converse 
with him unceasingly ; that neither the duties, nor the 
pleasures of life, may lead us from him ; that w^e may 
come from immediate intercourse with Christ, into the 
pulpit ; and that w^e may return again into his blessed 
and purifying, and enlightening presence. Be assured 
that it is your interest, as much as your duty, thus to 
pray ; for so alone, the Holy Spirit of our God assisting 
us, shall we be enabled to speak of Christ, as the apostles 
themselves spake of him, when from the gracious words 
which proceeded out of their Hps, their hearers at once 
"took knowledgeof them, that they had been with Jesus. "J 

No sooner had our Divine Master selected the twelve 
favoured followers who were to go with him whitherso- 
ever he went, during the remainder of his ministry, than 

♦ Philippians ii. 5. t Idem. t Acts iv* 13, 



LECTURE IIL 241 

he addressed to them, and to the assembled multitudes, 
the discourse usually known by the appellation of the 
*' Sermon on the Mount." A composition, of which it is 
very insufficient commendation to declare, that so pure, 
so spiritual, so perfect a code of ethics, never from the 
world's creation to that hour, had been delivered to the 
children of men. Then, for the first time, were men 
instructed in the real nature of the law of God ; that it 
required truth in the inmost parts ; that it was intended 
to control every glance of the eye, and every feeling of 
the heart, as positively and as distinctly, as every word 
of the lips, and every action of the life ; that an angry 
word,* and a resentful or contemptuous expression, would 
entail the judgments of God, as surely as the more open 
violence of the ruffian and the murderer ; that a lustful 
lookf was as certainly recorded in the book of God's re- 
membrance as an adulterous act ; that the charity be- 
stowed to be seen of men,J was disregarded by our 
Father which is in heaven ; that the return for the hypo- 
crite's prayers, and the hypocrite's fasting, was all be- 
stowed on earth ; that they had here their reward, and 
here their consolation.^ It was in this wonderful dis- 
course that men for the first time learnt from God him- 
self not only the manner,|| but the language in which 
they should approach him ; for here the Saviour for the 
first time delivered that inimitable composition, " The 
Lord's Prayer." It was here, also, that in opposition to 
every established opinion in the world, yea, no doubt to 
the natural feehngs even of the apostles themselves, our 
Lord declared that not the great and glorious, but the 

* Matthew v. 22. t Matthew v. 28. t Matthew vi. 2, 3, 4. 

^ Matthew vi. 5-16. || Matthew vi. 5-15. 

21 



242 LECTURE III. 

poor and meek, not those whom the world calls happy, 
but the pure in heart, the mourner and the peace maker, 
are the only truly blessed. 

Wonderful indeed is this divine discourse : so wonder- 
ful, that there are not wanting well authenticated in- 
stances in the Christian Church, of the sceptic and the 
unbeliever, whom no other evidence of the veracity of 
our holy religion could affect, having been converted to 
the belief in its eternal truths, and the divinity of its 
blessed Author, by a careful investigation of the " Sermon 
on the Mount." One such instance has come to my 
knowledge during the course of my ministry in this 
place; and I doubt not but the last day will disclose 
many, in which the lessons of charity, forbearance, and 
love, conveyed in this discourse, have fixed upon the 
heart an abiding impression that " never man spake like 
this man,"* and have compelled the reader to exclaim, 
while dwelling upon the heavenly spirit of purity and 
peace which here pervades every sentence that fell from 
the lips of its Divine Author, " Truly this man was the 
Son of God."t 

Some short time after the delivery of the discourse, 
to which we have thus briefly alluded, the interval 
being marked by the healing of the centurion's servant, 
and the raising of the widow^'s son, we find our Lord 
invited by one of the Pharisees, named Simon, " to eat 
with him*" The evangelist continues, " And he went 
into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat."J 
To enter fully into the feeling of the beautiful incident 
to which these words form the prelude, you must bear 
in mind the universal custom of those days, and in those 

* John vii. 46. t Matthew xxvii. 64 ; Mark xv. 39. I Luke tii. 36. 



LECTURE III. 243 

countries. The dinner table was surrounded by a couch, 
upon which the guests, having put off their sandals, re- 
clined at full length, each leaning upon a pillow placed 
under the left arm. The servants stood behind this 
couch and therefore at the back of their masters, and 
on a level with their feet, so that the phrase, " to stand 
at the feet," was not unfrequently used as descriptive of 
servants in waiting. While, then, our Lord was thus 
reclining at table, " Behold," continues the evangelist, 
to draw our attention more expressly to the incident 
which follows,. "Behold, a woman in the city, which 
was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in 
the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of oint- 
ment, and stood at his feet, behind him, weeping, and 
began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them 
with the hair's of her head, and kissed his feet, and 
anointed them with the ointment."* There is no reason 
whatever to suppose that the person here spoken of, 
was either Mary Magdalene, or Mary the sister of 
Lazarus; the latter certainly anointed our Lord's feet a 
few days before his crucifixion, but it is perfectly gra- 
tuitous to conclude that she anointed them twice, or that 
Mary Magdalene ever anointed them at all. All that 
is told of the woman of whom we are here speaking is, 
that she dwelt in that city, most likely Nain, and that 
she had been an open sinner. She is never again men- 
tioned, that we are aware of, in the gospel history. 
Unknown, therefore, she will for ever remain, to the 
Church of God on earth, but doubtless well known to 
" the Church of the first-born, whose names are written 
in heaven,"t as one who loved and honoured their Re- 

* Luke vii. 37, 38. t John i. 11. 



244 LECTURE III. 

deemer at a time when " his own received him not ;" 
when even a cup of cold water was thankfully ac^ 
cepted ; and when the tears of this poor penitent formed 
the brightest jewels which adorned his crown. 

No sooner had the woman thus offered her little 
tribute to that gracious Being, from whose divine teach- 
ing she had already learnt to hate and to forsake her 
sins, and to love dearly and tenderly the Saviour for 
whom she had forsaken them, than the Pharisee rea- 
soned within himself; " This man, if he were a prophet, 
would have known who and what manner of woman 
this is which toucheth him ; for she is a sinner."* 
Hitherto the. whole scene appears to have passed in 
perfect silence; in silence fell the tears of gratitude upon 
the Saviour's feet; in silence the poor, but happy peni- 
tent, enjoyed the consciousness of her sins forgiven, and 
her person and her offering accepted by the Redeemer 
of the world ; and while demonstrating her gratitude in 
a manner which she knew he could not misunderstand, 
and which she cared not how others might misinterpret, 
she desired no sign, she sought no language of approval. 
Perhaps her enjoyment was as complete, during those 
silent moments, when all the affections of her full heart 
were poured forth at her Redeemer's feet, as the highest 
encomiums even of that Redeemer himself could make 
it. But the time was come, when both for her sake, 
and for his own, that silence must be broken. The 
Lord of life saw all those disparaging and unworthy 
thoughts which were kindhng at the heart of the self- 
righteous Pharisee, and at once opens the conversation 
thus; *' Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee.^f 

* Luke vii. 39. t Luke vii. 40. 



LECTURE III. 245 

The Pharisee answered, " Master, say on.'** Though 
the heart had just pronounced his guest to be an innpos- 
tor, the worthless courtesy of the Ups proclaimed him 
" Master" still " There was a certain creditor which 
had two debtors, the one owed him five hundred pence, 
the other fifty ; and when they had nothing to pay, he 
frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which 
of them will love him most."f The Pharisee, who 
appears to have had little conception of the application 
of the parable, carelessly replies, " I suppose that he to 
whom he forgave most. "J Then did our Lord in a 
manner so pointed, so unanswerable, so overwhelming, 
to Simon, and yet so tenderly considerate to that poor 
penitent, defend the cause of her who stood trembling 
and weeping among the servants at his feet, that there 
is no child of God who would not rather have been the 
subject of that defence, than of all the accumulated 
honours of the world, " Jesus said unto him, thou hast 
rightly judged."§ " And he turned to the woman," 
whom probably, from her situation, he had never, till 
that moment, seen ; " and said unto Simon, Seest thou 
this woman ? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me 
no water for my feet ; but she hath washed my feet 
with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. 
Thou gavest me no kiss ; but this woman, since the 
time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. Mine 
head with oil thou didst not anoint; but this woman 
hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say 
unto thee, her sins, which are many," (marking there- 
fore, to Simon's fullest satisfaction, how perfectly our 
Lord knew she was a sinner) " are forgiven ; for she 
loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same 

* Luke vii. 4L t Luke vii. 42. X Luke vii. 43. $ Luke vii. 44, 

21* 



246 LECTURE III. 

laveth little."* Not, as is too often misunderstood, she 
is forgiven, because she loved much; but she loved 
much, because she had been forgiven. The object of 
our Lord most unquestionably being, to show that the 
amount of the believer's love will bear an exact propor- 
tion to the amount of evil, and of danger, and of sin, 
from which he knows he has been rescued. Then, to 
proclaim before the whole company of Pharisaic cavil- 
lers, the fact already known and deUghted in, by her 
who w^as the immediate and blessed subject of it, " He 
said unto her, thy sins are forgiven,"! " thy faith hath 
saved thee ; go in peace. "J 

And can men read, or can men hear this story, and 
then tell us that love to the Saviour forms no necessary 
part of our religion? that it is enthusiasm, folly, the 
mere effect of high-wrought imaginations, with no 
ground-work in the sober foundations of the word of 
God ? All we ask to determine the question is this, let 
an uneducated, unprejudiced person read the incident 
before us, without one word of comment, and then in- 
quire of him, what is the state of heart which a Saviour 
who spake, and acted thus, while here below, and who 
is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,"§ most 
values now? Do you believe that such a man would 
hesitate in his reply? Do you believe that he w^ould 
question the necessity of every thought, and feeling, 
and affection of the soul being devoted to the love of 
that blessed Being who has redeemed it? No! the 
answer of every simple-minded reader of such an inci- 
dent must be, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus 
Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha."|| 

* Luke vii. 47. t Luke vii. 48. t Luke vii. 50. 

^ Heb. xiii. 8, || 1 Cor. xvi. 22. 



i 



LECTURE III. 247 

My brethren, in what manner, then, do your hearts 
respond to this improving history ? Is the love of the 
Saviour a duty of which you have never thought, a 
privilege of which, experimentally, you are ignorant, 
you may, perhaps, find the reason of it here. You 
have been forgiven little — httle, did I say? nay, then, 
there would be still some love, some feelings of grati- 
tude, to him, from whom the mercy is received ; for he 
to whom Uttle is forgiven, the same loveth still, though 
he loves but Httle. Where there is, then, no love, there 
can have been no forgiveness; therefore, where there 
is no love to Jesus, you are still unforgiven — "ye are 
yet in your sins."* You may, with Simon the Pharisee, 
have held outward converse with the Saviour, even sat 
at his table, and like the Pharisee, have called him 
" Master ;" but assuredly you never dropped one tear of 
penitence for sin, or of gratitude that sin was pardoned. 
No ! this little incident, with our Lord's own comment 
upon it, accounts for all the coldness, and the hardness 
of the rehgion of the world. You do not love, because 
you have neither found, nor sought, forgiveness. You 
cannot love, because you are told to love, or even be- 
cause you ought to love ; there must be something in 
the object itself, or something received from the object 
itself, before it can call forth the aflfections of the human 
heart. The oierely professing Christian sees nothing 
lovely in the Saviour, and is conscious of receiving no 
personal benefits at his hands ; how then can he love 
him? You can only love Christ, and God in Christ, 
"because he first loved you;"f you can only feel 
assured of this love, and fully enjoy the individual ap- 

* 1 Cor. XV. 17. 1 1 John iv. 19. 



248 LECTURE III. 

propriation of it, by obtaining a sense of the forgiveness 
of your sins ; and this sense of pardon, while it is the 
free gift of God by the operation of his good Spirit, 
upon your heart, is seldom long withheld, where there 
is a true, a lively a justifying faith. For you will 
observe that it was to this, especially, that our Lord 
referred, as the cause instrumentally, of the penitent's 
pardon and salvation-—" Thy faith hath saved thee, go 
in peace." 

If, then, there be one child of God here present, whose 
love to the Redeemer is cold and feeble, I would say to 
that individual, strive and pray for an assured and un- 
doubted consciousness, that you are indeed forgiven. 
Behold not only forgiveness itself, but the sense of for- 
giveness revealed in the word of God as the believer's 
privilege ; pray for it as necessary to the advancement 
of your own happiness, and of your Saviour's glory. 
Rest not until, by persevering prayer, you have obtained 
it. For never is Christ more honoured than by the love 
and happiness of his people ; and how closely these are 
connected with the pardon of sin, we need not tell. 

Be not afraid that the knowledge of your forgiveness, 
the consciousness of your acceptance with God, will 
breed presumption ; in a real child of God it invariably 
begets humility, for "Who maketh thee to differ from 
another? or what hast thou that thou didst not receive ?"* 
The deepest humility ever seen on earth, is not only 
perfectly consistent with the fullest sense, that you are 
an accepted penitent, a pardoned sinner, but is the very 
offspring of that blessed conviction ; for surely never 
was humility herself more humble than when she stood 

* 1 Corinthians iv. 7. 



LECTURE III. 249 

among the Pharisees's servants, weeping tears of joy 
upon the Redeemer's feet, and loving much, because she 
had had much forgiven. 

May the invaluable boon of a free and full forgiveness, 
and the abiding knowledge of it in our hearts, however 
long withheld, be bestowed by the infinite mercy of our 
God, upon every one who truly seeks it ; that *' though 
for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness, through 
manifold temptations, the trial of your faith being much 
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be 
tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honour 
and glory, at the appearance of Jesus Christ; whom 
having not seen ye love ; in whom, though now ye see 
him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, 
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even 
the salvation of your souls,"* 

*lPetepi.6-^ 



250 



LECTURE IV. 



Matthew xii. 31. 



" Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall 
be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." 

Our Lord, attended by the twelve apostles, having 
made the circuit of Galilee, "preaching and showing 
the glad tidings of the kingdonm of God,"* in every city 
and village, returned to Capernaum. 

While there, they " brought unto him one possessed 
wdth a devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him, inso- 
much that the blind and dumb both spake and saw."f 
It was upon this occasion that the malignity of the 
enemies of our Lord, evinced itself in a manner which 
drew forth from the Saviour of the world, the awful 
declaration of the text ; that there was a sin which God 
himself would never pardon, either in this world, or in 
the world to come ; a warning far too important to be 
passed over in silence, while attempting to convey any 
reasonable impression of the doctrines and preaching of 
our Divine Saviour. 

Immediately after the cure of the blind and dumb 

* Luke viii. 1. t Matthew xii. 22. 



LECTURE IV. 251 

demoniac, we are told by St. Matthew, that "when the 
Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast 
out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils."* 
Our Lord having exposed the extreme absurdity of such 
a sentiment, by the observation that a kingdom, or a 
city, or a family, divided against itself, would be brought 
to desolation, and that the kingdom of Satan could form 
no exception to so infallible a rule, proceeds, having 
thus demonstrated its falsehood, to animadvert in the fol- 
lowing manner upon its sin : " Wherefore I say unto 
you, all manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be for- 
given unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever 
speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be for- 
given him : but whosoever speaketh against the Holy 
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, 
neither in the world to come."f 

There is something, at first sight, so completely 
opposed to the general tendency of the merciful and 
pardoning spirit of the gospel of our Lord, in the pas- 
sage which has just been read to you, that few, we 
believe, have ever reflected upon it, without expe- 
riencing a deep anxiety, fully to understand the nature 
of its fearful denunciations, and to reconcile it to the 
general declarations of forgiveness and love, w^hich 
pervade the word of God : while many have, from an 
inaccurate conception of it Hved for years in a state of 
trouble and despondency, for which they believed that 
neither earth nor heaven, neither time nor eternity, con- 
tained a remedy. This fact, a fact which the expe- 
rience of most Christians fully corroborates, will, I trust, 

* Matthew xii. 24. t Matthew xii, 32, 33^ 



252 LECTURE IV. 

justify me in entering more at length upon this subject, 
than the nature of these lectures will usually allow me 
to do, upon any abstract point of doctrine. 

It will probably assist us in our considerations, if we 
begin by examining the case of some great and grievous 
transgressors, who are often supposed by others, and 
still more often by themselves, to fall within the charge 
of sinning against the Holy Ghost. 

L First, then, the man is not necessarily guilty of this 
unpardonable sin, who after he has received the know- 
ledge of God, falls into great and heinous enormities, 
and disgraces his calling, and grieves the blessed Spirit 
of whom we speak. I mention this, first, because the 
opinion that he is thus guilty appears to derive great 
encouragement from this text in the sixth chapter of the 
Hebrews ; " It is impossible for those who were once 
enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and 
were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted 
the good word of God, and the powers of the world to 
come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto 
repentance." 

We believe that in this text, the word '*' impossible," 
is simply used to express the extreme of difficulty, but 
not literally of impossibility. Just as our Lord says, 
" If any man hate not his father and mother, he cannot ^ 
be my disciple,"* where he evidently uses the word 
" hate," comparatively, and as intended to imply only a 
less degree of love, than that with which the Saviour is 
to be loved. We should say, therefore, that though 
difficult, it is not absolutely impossible, for those who 
have thus offended the Holy Ghost, to return to the 

* Luke xiv. 26. 



LECTURE IV. 253 

ways of peace, and receive the pardon of God. For 
if it were, then assuredly must David have been con- 
demned, since few will doubt, that he had tasted of the 
heavenly gift, and been made partaker of the Holy 
Ghost, before he sinned in the matter of Uriah ; and yet 
we are expressly told, for the comfort of the Church, 
that upon a sincere and deep repentance, he redeived 
the blessed assurance, " the Lord hath put away thy sin, 
thou shalt not die."* 

IL Neither is he guilty of the unpardonable sin, who 
is led for a time, by the temptations of Satan, or his 
own corrupt heart, openly to rebel against this Divine 
Spirit ; for the prophet Isaiah tell us expressly, respect- 
ing the children of Israel, that " they rebelled and vexed 
his Holy Spirit,"f but that God still " remembered the 
days of old, Moses and his people,"J and yet again had 
mercy upon them. 

III. Nor does he commit it who " hath not believed 
in the name of the only begotten Son of God,"§ and 
" who loves darkness better than lights because his deeds 
are evil."|| For this is truly our Lord's description of 
the unregenerate in his day, and is undoubtedly the 
characteristic of every unregenerate man, in every age 
and every clime. 

IV. Nor again is he guilty of it, who through fear 
denies the Lord who bought him ; for then would St. 
Peter himself have been among the miserable number 
of the unpardoned. Nor he who persecutes the people 
of Christ ; for then would St. Paul have been a cast- 
away. Nor he who " crucifies the Son of God afresh ;"T[ 

* 2 Samuel xii. 13, t Isaiah Ixiii. 10. t Isaiah Ixiii. 11. 

$ John iii< 18, |{ John iii. 19. T Hebrews vi. 6. 

22 



254 LECTURE IV. 

for then would all who crucified him in Calvary have 
been condemned. And yet we distinctly know that 
some, at least of these, obtained mercy. For examine 
Acts ii* 36 — ^38. " Therefore let all the house of Israel 
know assuredly, that God hath made that Jesus, whom 
ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when 
they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and 
said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men 
and brethren, what shall we do?" And what was 
Peter's answer, Ye have sinned the unpardonable sin^ 
and cannot be forgiven ? No, far from it, — " Repent 
and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
Christ, for the remission of sins." 

Of these delinquencies, then, great, and terrible, and 
damnable as they all, if persevered in and unrepented 
of, unquestionably are, we may safely assert, that neither 
any of them singly, nor all of them together, can be 
pronounced to be the sin, upon which the Saviour here 
passed the most dreadful of all condemnations. 

Were we asked distinctly in what does it consist, 
we should reply, from an examination of the context, 
Simply in ascribing the miracles of our Lord to the 
power of the prince of darkness. But then we should 
gather from all the circumstances of the case, this assu- 
rance, that although the sin itself, probably, may never 
be committed at the present day, the state of mind which 
led to its committal, may not be so utterly unknow^n 
even among ourselves, as men, in the fulness of a spuri- 
ous charity, are but too apt to imagine. .For consider 
the characters of those who brought this impeachment 
against our Lord. They were not the poor, and the 
illiterate, but the most learned class of persons at that 
time in Judaea. They had seen the miracles of Christy 



LECTURE IV. 255 

they had heard his preaching, they had witnessed the 
spotless purity of his Ufe, they were perfectly well 
versed in every prophecy respecting him, and they 
knew that he had applied those prophecies to himself 
They had, probably, even heard his wonderful defence 
before the Sanhedrim, and were in heart, thoroughly 
convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of 
God. In the face of this conviction, they determined 
to reject and destroy him, and by the accusation of 
demoniacal possession, to overthrow his influence, and 
thus to prepare the way for the persecution and death 
which they were preparing for him. In fact, to disavow 
and blaspheme the operation of the Holy Ghost, at the 
very moment when they were most fully convinced, that 
so doing, they were fighting against God. 

The very essence of this sin, then, appears to be, that 
it was not a sin of ignorance, but of presumption ; not 
like other sins, from some motive of self-gratification, 
but from the most hardened enmity and hatred towards 
God ; and this, not merely against God the Father, as a 
Sovereign ; or against God the Son, as a Saviour ; or 
against God the Holy Ghost, as a Sanctifier; but against 
the three eternal, co-equal Persons of the everlasting 
and ever-blessed Trinity, in the Person of the Holy 
Ghost ; . and to add to the guilt and iniquity of the act, 
this at the very time when that Holy Spirit, as a Mes- 
senger of peace, was willing to come with his saving, 
and life-giving influences, into their souls. All the power, 
the wisdom, the love of the Triune Jehovah, concentred 
in the Holy Ghost, for the express purpose of winning 
the sinner to his God, were thus openly opposed, blas- 
phemed, and trampled upon, by those who believed in 
their heart the truth of the doctrines which they denied, 



256 LECTURE IV. 

the value of the promises which they rejected, the 
authority of the Saviour whom they affected to despise. 

That this sin is unpardonable, we have the authority 
of Christ himself. Why it is so, is sufficiently ansv^ered 
by the reply, because God has willed it so. No sin can 
be forgiven without repentance ; but repentance is the 
gift of God, and for this it will assuredly never be be- 
stowed. The blasphemers of the Holy Ghost, therefore, 
by driving from them the only person who could ^' give 
repentance,"* the only person who conveys all the cove- 
nanted mercies of the Godhead, which are from the 
Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Ghost, into 
the souls of his people, seal themselves up, under final 
and total apostaoy, until the day of doom. 

From the explanation w^hich we have here attempted 
to give, of the state of mind which must invariably ac- 
company this unpardonable sin, it will be obvious that 
there is one peculiar feature in it, wfiich should be re- 
remembered, lest at any time, Satan, " the accuser of 
the brethren," endeavour to persuade you, that you have 
committed this fearful offence against the Majesty on 
high. The characteristic to which I allude, is this — the 
sin will not only be intentionally committed, but it will 
necessarily be final ; by which I mean, it will be perse- 
vered in even unto death. There will be no pause, no mis- 
giving, no fear of having offended God, no earnest desire 
of a return into the path of holiness, to the man engaged 
in this sin. Where these exist, their very existence dis- 
proves the fact, that the unpardonable sin has been com- 
mitted. The blasphemer of the Holy Ghost can never 
know regret, or relentings here, as he will never know 

* Acts V. 31 ; xi. 18. 



P LECTURE IV. 257 

forgiveness hereafter. His course is one of constant, 
open warfare against the Majesty of heaven, hating God 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with what nnay be 
' called a rancorous and personal hatred ; such a feehng, 
for instance, as was evidenced by the most brilliant and 
most worthless of foreign infidels, when he concluded 
his letters, with the well-known and horrible blasphemy, 
of ** Crush the wretch," as applied to that blessed and 
Divine Being, whose history w^e are considering. 

If, then, I address any, who are grieving deeply, from 
the apprehension that they have committed the sin against 
the Holy Ghost, I would ask them. Has your rejection of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, of his person, his sacrifice, his 
offers, been a wilful and an obstinate rejection, against 
conviction, against the surest belief that he whom you 
rejected was all that you denied him to be ? And do 
you still wittingly and willingly thus despise him ? If 
you do not, — and where is the soul who ever yet could 
at the same moment be acting thus, and yet grieving to 
act thus — you have not, you cannot have committed the 
unpardonable sin. It would, in fact, involve a positive 
contradiction in terms, that any individual guilty of this 
sin, should either fear, or feel that he was guilty of it. 
Be assured, then, whatever approaches you may ima- 
gine you have made to this fearful state of mind and 
feelings, so long as you have even a will to return, or 
a single sincere regret within your heart, that you have 
thus offended God, the door of mercy and of pardon is 
not closed upon you; for as it is God who alone " work- 
eth in you thus to will,"* it is evident that he has not 
forsaken you, but that the cleansing blood of Christ, the 

* Philippians^ ii. 13., 

22* 



258 LECTURE IV. 

sanctifying influences of the Spirit, the pardoning love of 
the Triune Jehovah, are still freely offered to you, and 
God himself still waiting to be gracious. 

From the very day that the sin of which we have 
now been speaking was committed by the Pharisees, a 
very remarkable change took place in the method in 
which our Divine Master deUvered his instructions to 
the people ; from that day he spake unto them by para* 
bles. Previously, his instructions had been plain and 
simple ; such, for instance, as his sermon at Nazareth, 
and on the Mount; indeed, perhaps with a single excep- 
tion, no parable had ever yet been delivered by our Lord, 
but from henceforth, "without a parable," says the evan- 
gelist, " spake he not unto them." When the first instance 
of this occurred, viz, the parable of the sower, the 
disciples, naturally surprised at the change which had 
taken place in their Lord's method of teaching, imme- 
diately inquire, " Why speakest thou unto them in para- 
bles ? He answered and said unto them. Because it is 
given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom 
of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever 
hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more 
abundance ; but whosoever hath not, from him shall 
be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I 
to them in parables : because they seeing, see not ; and 
hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand."* . 

My brethren, these are awful truths. Our Lord dis- 
tinctly declares, that the reason for which he adopted 
the metaphorical mode of speaking, of which so many 
beautiful instances are recorded, was not, as many 
imagine, because the parable was a common Eastern 
method of illustration, and therefore. peculiarly fitted to 

* Matthew xiii. 10-13. 



LECTURE IV. 259 

the comprehension of his hearers ; had this been the 
case, it would scarcely have been so unintelligible to the 
disciples ; it was rather from a feeling of deep compas- 
sion for those who were wilfully rejecting the bread of 
life, that he might not increase their condemnation, who, 
when plain truths were presented to them, saw them, as 
if they had seen them not ; and heard them, as if they 
had heard them not. He, in fact, removed the light 
which they neglected, in mercy, lest they should pro- 
cure to themselves the greater condemnation. 

Be warned then, brethren, that you trifle not with the 
opportunities of religious instruction. Dwell much, dwell 
frequently, upon the word of God, which you are privi- 
leged to hear from time to time ; pray over it, receive 
it as your covenant of mercy, your daily rule of life ; 
until every worldly, sensual, ungodly habit, action, word, 
and thought, be reduced to the " obedience of Christ,"* 
and we are enabled, by God's grace, to say of every 
individual committed to our spiritual charge, " Blessed 
are your eyes for they see; and your ears for they 
hear.^f 

When our Lord had finished his parables, and ex- 
plained them to his own immediate followers, " He went 
into a ship with his disciples, and gave commandment 
to depart, and said unto them, Let us go over unto the 
other side of the lake. And behold, there arose a great 
tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered 
with the waves, but he was asleep. And they were filled 
with w^ater, and were in jeopardy. And his (^sciples 
came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord save us, we 
perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, 

* 2 Corinihians x. 5. t Matthew xiii. 16. 



260 LECTURE IV. 

ve of little faith ? Then he arose, and rebuked the 
winds and the sea, and there was a great calm."* 

" Judge not according to the appearance/'f said our 
Lord ; and where is that follower of his who needs not 
so wise and merciful a caution ? No vessel ever put to 
sea, which we should have thought would have been 
blessed with a fairer wind, and a more prosperous voy- 
age, than that which carried the Saviour of the world. 
Yet upon that vessel did the prince of the powers of the 
air exert all his influence, and all his malice, until the 
waters covered it, and the vessel itself was in jeopardy. 
Are you sometimes led to fear that the true and living 
Church of the Redeemer has not the presence of the 
Saviour with her, because she is oppressed, or opposed, 
or endangered ? Or are you, in your individual case, 
led to doubt of the same blessed fact, because in tempo- 
ral or in spiritual things, trouble and disappointment, the 
tempest of the world's opposition, or the winds of de- 
spondency and doubt, are permitted to assault your soul; 
because you sometimes feel it to be almost a question, 
whether you are really a child of God, or have any part 
or lot among the heirs of his inheritance ? To you, then, 
there is much encouragement in the incident before us. 
The presence of the Saviour did not prevent a storm; 
but when at the worst, it instantly and entirely quelled 
it. It allowed enough of danger to try the faith of his 
people, but not suflScient to peril their existence. The 
fact that the Saviour is with you, is therefore fully suffi- 
cient to enable you to brave all dangers, to face all trials, 
and to be assured of safety, and preservation, and final 
deliverance. But even his most immediate presence, 

* Luke Tiii. 22, 23 ; Matthew yiii. 18, 24. t Joha Tii. 24. 



LECTURE IV. 261 

that felt pi'esence, which the true Christian, and the true 
Christian alone, is sometimes permitted so sensibly to 
enjoy, will not preserve you from many an hour of spi- 
ritual suffering, yea, even of deep and fearful anguish 
to your soul. For these are the moments when " the 
trial of your faith worketh patience,"* " and patience, 
experience ;"f yes, the blessed experience of the infinite 
power and infinite love of your Redeemer, which then 
shine forth the more resplendently; for the bow of the 
covenant never appears so glorious as when it stretches 
across the blackest cloud. Had there been no storm, 
the power of the divine Saviour over the discordant 
elements might never have been known, even to his dis- 
ciples. Had he not been asleep during that storm, their 
faith, small as it was, would never have been exhibited 
at all. Bless God, then, in your own case, for every 
hour of trial, however dark, if you have seen in it more 
and more of the covenant love of God which passeth 
knowledge. Bless God for every prayer which has ap- 
peared to be unheard, if it have led you to more prayer, 
more faithful, earnest intreaty, until the awakening 
Saviour has shown himself for your complete and full 
deliverance. Again, take courage from the fact, that 
even the disciples themselves possessed but " little faith. "J 
And do not despair, even if yours be less than the least 
of all seeds. A true and saving faith, although it cannot 
be too large for God's glory, and for your own comfort, 
cannot be too small for the purpose of salvation, if it be 
but the true and living faith of the gospel. The ship- 
wrecked sailor, if he have but been cast upon a rock, 
a single foot above the reach of the waves, is as per- 

* James i. 3. t Romans v. 4. X Matthew vi. 30. 



262 LECTURE IV. 

fectly secure as if he were looking down from a thou- 
sand fathoms high, upon the troubled waters. If, by \ 
God's grace, your soul have really found a resting-place I 
upon the Rock of Ages, God will not despise the day of 
small things, the disciples of " little faith." It is enough, 
that you have been cast, by God's sovereign grace, upon 
the Rock. Let all the powers of darkness conspire to 
raise the tempest, both its winds and waves are impo- 
tent, in detaching the feeblest sinner who' clings for 
safety to the sheltering side of that eternal barrier. 

'' Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here 
shall thy proud waves be stayed,''* has been from all 
eternity engraven upon that Rock, and never has that 
boundary hne of safely been overpassed. Only rest not 
contentedly in your present station, be daily climbing 
higher and higher, by more fervent prayer, by more fre- 
quent, and close, and intimate communion ; and, above 
all, by conscientiously and consistently acting according 
to that portion of light which God has given you. Be 
thus continually endeavouring to advance to higher de- 1 
grees of spirituality of heart, and holiness of life, and; 
resemblance to the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of your 
salvation. Be not content, until you have reached the 
summit of that Rock, whose Head is above the heavens. 
And may he who rebuked the wind and the sea, so that 
the raging of the waters ceased, and there was a great 
calm, fulfil to you his own most blessed promise, by 
"bruising Satan under your feet shortly,"! and receiving I 
you in safety, within the walls of that celestial city, 
" whose buildqr and maker is God." 

* Job xxxTiii. 11. t Romans xvi. 20. 



263 



LECTURE V- 

Mark v* 25-28. 



•* A certain woman, when she heard of Jesus, came in the press 
behind, and touched his garment. For she said. If I may but 
touch his clothes I shall be made whole." 



After the incident with which the last lecture con- 
cluded, we find our Lord passing over, for a short time, 
into the country of the Gadarenes. So little were these 
unhappy people prepared, to benefit either by the pre^ 
sence, or the preaching of Christ, that the only effect 
produced upon them, by one of the most astonishing of 
his miracles, was, that "they began to pray him to 
depart out of their coasts."* It is not always that our 
Lord will resist the opposition of the carnal heart, and 
overcome every impediment, and break down every 
obstacle, and enthrone himself upon our vanquished 
appetites and lusts ; it was not so in the case before us ; 
for we are told, immediately afterwards, that "Jesus 
passed over again by ship to the other side.''f Had our 
Lord treated us, individually, as he here saw fit, in his 
wisdom and justice, to treat the Gadarenes, how few 
among us would have been present in this house of God 

* Mark V. 17. t Mark v. 21. 



264 LECTURE V. j 

to day ! How seldom are the first offers of a Saviour 
cordially heard, and immediately accepted, by those 
who have lived in ignorance of God. Many a repulsive 
feeUng, many a rebellious thought, rises up within them; 
and though few will emulate the open opposition of the 
Gadarenes, and say, " Depart from us," how many are 
there who put the word of salvation wilfully from them, 
rush into the world, give way to folly, yield to sin, and : 
in their days of darkness seek any and every master, 
rather than commit themselves at once to the Shepherd 
of their souls, and give themselves up to be guided, and 
governed, and sanctified, and saved, by the God of their 
salvation. 

The lesson before us, then, is an awakening one. You 
also, like the Gadarenes, may be permitted once, and but 
once, to have the offers of a Saviour's presence, and a 
Saviour's love, freely set before you ; the present may 
be that important season, once neglected, to return no 
more ; the door of your salvation closed ; the word of 
your salvation silenced ; the Saviour of your salvation 
for ever gone. God grant that we may speak, and that 
you may hear, this day, as those who fully believe in the 
possibility of so awful a verity. | 

As soon as our Lord had landed upon the opposite 
side, " there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, 
Jairus by name, and when he saw him, he fell down at 
Jesus' feet," and " besought him greatly, that he would 
come into his house."* How remarkable a contrast to 
the treatment which our Lord had just received on the 
opposite shore ! But may we not ask, with David, " Is 
there not a cause ?"f Had no domestic calamity wrung 

♦ Mark v. 22. 1 1 Samuel xvii. 29. 



LECTURE V. 265 

the heart of the ruler— had no deep and trying affliction 
sent him to the Saviour, would he have been thus 
zealous, thus earnest, in his application to the Lord of 
life ? We cannot answer the inquiry, as it applies to the 
ruler, but there are few who will hesitate to do so, as 
regards themselves ; few who will not, with shame and 
humiliation^ confess— but for that bed of sickness — but 
for tha^t worldly disappointment — but for the loss of that 
dear friend — but for the death of that loved child — I had 
never sought or found the Saviour of the world. 

The ruler, however, not only sought the Lord, but, as 
we are expressly told, he came " beseeching greatly.'' 
His feelings, therefore, of the need of the mercy for 
which he sought, were strong and powerful ; grief and 
anxiety found a ready utterance; his prayer was marked 
by its fulness, its earnestness, its importunity. Does this 
describe the nature of our petition, when we draw near 
to God in daily prayer? and if not, whence the dif- 
ference ? Alas ! the difference is here. The ruler went 
with a heart full of trouble, and anxiety, and faith ; and 
"out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."* 
We too often go, we fear, with a heart so Uttle occupied 
by our high errand, with a soul so little impressed by 
our deep and urgent necessity, a spirit so little influenced 
by a strong confiding faith in him to whom we apply, 
that so far from *' beseeching greatly," we have neither 
desires to express, nor words in which to convey them. 
Learn, then, from the example before us, what is essential 
for acceptable prayer. Endeavour, by serious thought 
and holy meditation, to seek that Spirit, who alone can 
fill your heart with a real sense of your own danger, 

* Matthew xii. 34. 

23 



266 LECTURE V. 

poverty, wretchedness, and sin, and this, accompanied, 
as in the ruler, by a true and living faith in the power 
of him to whom you apply, and you will find no diffi- 
culty in " beseeching greatly^' for the aid of the good 
Physician. But remember that every petition uttered in 
the absence of feehngs such as these, falls short of that 
throne of grace to which you send it; and like an arrow 
from a slackened bow, powerless and errandless, drops | 
down to earth again. Examine the prayer of Jairus, 
and you will almost be convinced, that he must have 
spoken both the language of faith, and the language of 
the heart ; *^ My little daughter lieth at the point of 
death ; I pray thee come and lay thy hands on her, that 
she may be healed, and she shall live."* " For," adds 
St. Luke, ^'he had one only daughter, about twelve years 
of age, and she lay a dying."f 

Even where there are many children, and times are 
hard, and the difficulty of bringing them up in comfort 
is great, the loss, or even the sickness, of any one among 
them, is to the parent's heart a trial of no ordinary 
weight ; but where the child is an only child, and the 
parent blessed with affluence, and his hopes and expec- 
tations are all centered upon the one single object of 
parental love, it must indeed be a heavy and a grievous 
visitation, when God is pleased to call back the precious 
boon which he has mercifully bestowed. That our gra- 
cious Redeemer not only well knows it to be so, but 
peculiarly sympathizes in trials such as these, may, we 
think, be gathered from the fact, that of the three 
memorable instances, in which he exerted his divine 
power over death and the grave, and broke their chains, 

* Mark t. 23* t Luke riii. 42. 



LECTURE V. 267 

and released their captives, and brought them back to 
life again, one was the case of an only brother, another 
an only son, and this an only daughter. Who can hear 
of such discriminating instances of the love and tender- 
ness of our Redeemer, and not experience the unspeak- 
able comfort w^hich the apostle appears to have derived 
from the consideration, that we have indeed a merciful 
High Priest, who can be touched, and who assuredly 
is " touched with the feeling of all our infirmities." Can 
you, then, apply to that Saviour, under any circum- 
stances of difficulties or trials, without feeling the full 
" assurance of faith," that he has not only power enough, 
but love enough, to grant all, and more than all, of 
which you stand in need ? 

" And Jesus arose and went wdth him," says the 
evangelist, " and so did his disciples." But as they 
w^ent on the way to the house of mourning, surrounded 
by a crowd of wondering spectators, and closely at- 
tended by the anxious father, to whose request our Lord 
had yielded so instantaneous an obedience, " Behold, a 
certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve 
years, and had suflTered many things of many physicians, 
and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bet- 
tered, but rather grew worse, when she heard of Jesus, 
came in the press behind, and touched the hem of his 
garment, for she said. If I may but touch his clothes I 
shall be whole ; and straightway the fountain of her 
blood was dried up, and she felt in her body, that she 
was healed of that plague."* 

It furnishes us with some little idea of the abundance 
of the miracles of our Lord, of which, comparatively, 

*MarkY,2^ 



268 LECTURE V. 

SO few have been recorded, when we find one of the 
most remarkable, conveyed thus, as it were, merely in 
a parenthesis ; so little dwelt upon, that had it not oc- 
curred during his passage to the house of Jairus, it 
seems probable, that it would never have been narrated ; 
and yet few are the instances, from which more of com- 
fort and encouragement to the feeble or the secret fol- 
lower of our Lord, may be deduced, than from this 
simple story. 

We first remark the secrecy of the application of this 
poor sufferer. Some had not scrupled to call aloud 
upon the passing Saviour, " Jesus, Master, have mercy 
on us ;"* others to be placed upon their sick beds in the 
Saviour's path, that it might be impossible to overlook 
them ; but here was one, who, with the natural timidity 
and modesty of her sex, shrunk from observation, and 
would not publicly ask the mercy, of which she so 
greatly stood in need. 

We next observe the peculiar strength and energy of 
her faith. Many had believed that a word, a command 
of Christ, was sufficient to heal the worst of maladies ; 
but none, that we are aware of, overbad faith to believe, 
as this poor woman did, that a single touch of his gar- 
ment, yea, even of the hem of his garment, would be 
superior to all the physicians upon earth. 

How remarkably analogous to this is the case of some 
few, some happy few, in every congregation. They 
make no loud professions, no public display of their 
deep conviction, of the plague which lies at their hearts' 
core ; and yet, perhaps, none have felt it more acutely, 
or laboured under it during a longer period of wretched- 

* Mark y. 26. 



LECTURE V. 269 

ness and wo» They also have " suffered many things 
of many physicians," and have been " nothing bettered, 
but have rather grovs?n worse." The world, society, 
business, self-righteousness, all have prescribed for them. 
The world has prescribed its pleasures, society its 
cheerfulness, business its occupation, self-righteousness 
its duties, but all equally in vain ; the stream of their cor- 
ruption flows on, as powerfully as ever, for the source 
of its pollution remains untouched ; the heart is cor- 
rupt, unhealed, unaltered still. They behold, perhaps, 
the crowds which throng around the Saviour ; for has 
he not said of the preaching of the Cross, as truly as of 
the sacrifice of the Cross, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
all men unto me ?"^ They " hear of Jesus," then, as 
we are told, this poor woman did ; they come in the 
crowd, and are hidden in the crowd ; their malady un- 
known even to those who follow in the same throng, or 
worship in the same temple with them. Thus all un- 
known, and all unseen to others, they receive the living 
word into their hearts, they draw near by faith to the 
Saviour, and put forth their hand, and not only touch 
his garment, but* hide themselves, and their own cor- 
ruptions, and their wo, beneath it, even the garment of 
a Saviour's righteousness, and find there, where alone 
it can be found, their healing and their cure. These 
are they whom David calls " The Lord's hidden ones,"f 
of whom, in the worst days of Israel's idolatry, there 
were seven thousand, unknown to man, but known in- 
deed of God, and precious ; hidden now, because of 
their humility, which courts not human observation ; 
because of their feebleness which needs a shield, and 

* John xxi. 22, t Psalm Izzxiii. 3. 

23* 



270 LECTURE V. 

their weakness which cannot stand upright ; but one 
day to be revealed, perhaps, even upon earth, when 
their faith has been strengthened, and their love in- 
creased, as among the most devoted and consistent 
followers of their divine Master ; but certainly, on the 
day when " the Lord of hosts shall make up his jewels,"* 
as among the brightest ornaments of their Redeemer's 
crown. 

Doubtless it is a glorious sight to see " the trees of 
righteousness," as the prophet denominates the esta^ 
blished people of God, " planted by the rivers of water, 
bringing forth their fruit in due season,"f lifting up their 
heads to heaven, in all the strength, and vigour, and 
beauty, which the dews of the Spirit have imparted, and 
the rays of the Sun of Righteousness have cherished, 
and standing unbroken and uninjured beneath the hea- 
viest gale that blows, defying alike the tempest and the 
flood. It may be a less glorious, but is it not even a 
more encouraging sight to the Christian, to mark these 
same trees, " the planting of the Lord,"J just as they 
are struggling into existence, their heads for the first 
time emerging from the underwood; and their weak 
and feeble stems drawing up from amidst the shelter 
that has shielded them, bending beneath every wind 
that blows, and appearing unable to stand the shock, 
with which the first strong gale shall visit them ? It is 
a blessed and a soul-encouraging sight to the Christian, 
because in that small and yielding sapling, he sees the 
stern, unbending oak of centuries yet to come, the 
father of the forest, upon which all storms, all tempests, 
shall exert their violence, but in vain. While others 

* Malachi iii. 17. t Psalm i. 3. t Isaiah Ixi. 3. 



LECTURE V. 271 

think only of the weakness of the tree, he is thinking 
of the strength and permanency of the root ; he knows 
that, far beneath the surface, and far beyond the sight 
of man, the root of that frail tree has driven its fibres 
firm and fast into the living Rock, and let the stem be 
shaken as it may above, all is secure below ; and let 
the hurricane sweep with resistless force across the 
forest, and every other tree fall prostrate beneath its 
arm, he knows that this may bend, but cannot break, 
and though it stoop to earth, shall rise again the stronger 
and the more secure, imperishable and indestructible, 
for it shall adorn the paradise of God. 

But there is a time when the Lord will not permit 
even his " secret ones" to remain hidden from the eye 
of men, but will compel them to manifest their faith, 
that his own glory may be revealed. So it was now 
with this poor sufferer ; she had obtained her cure, and 
was rejoicing in all that the Saviour had performed for 
her. When " Jesus immediately, knowing in himself 
that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the 
press, and said. Who touched my clothes ? And when 
all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, 
Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and 
sayest thou, who touched me ? And Jesus said. Some- 
body hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue is 
gone out of me. And he looked around about to see 
her that had done this thing. And when the woman 
saw that she was not hid, she came," — therefore she 
had evidently retired to some distance, immediately upon 
obtaining the cure, and was not among the number of 
those who had denied that they had touched the Lord, 
— " she came trembling, and falHng down before him, 
she told him all the truth," '^ she declared unto him be- 



272 LECTURE V, 

fore all the people, for what cause she had touched him, 
and how she was healed immediately."* 

Silence, which in the first instance was a proof of her 
modesty, would, if persevered in, now have been culpable. 
There is a time, brethren, when the most feeble believer 
among you all must not be ashamed to stand forth, and 
avow the mercies and the healing you have received ; 
must be ready to confess the Lord Jesus Christ before 
men, and, if called upon, to tell '' what the Lord hath 
done for your soul." He may not, and often does not, 
require this at the very beginning of your Christian 
course, at the very instant that you receive your spiri- 
tual cure ; but neither will he permit you to belong con- 
cealed. The cure must be attributed to the right source, 
must be acknowledged as the work of the good Physi- 
cian, and, as this poor woman did, you must tell " all the 
truth," that your Saviour may receive all the glory. 

" Then Jesus said unto her. Daughter be of good com- 
fort; thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace."f 
Are there any among you who need the peace which 
Christ alone can give, that " peace of God which passeth 
all understanding,"^ then receive it here. Your cure is 
not perfected, your healing not complete, until you have 
obtained peace ; peace of conscience, peace of mind, 
peace of soul. Whom the Lord Jesus Christ treats as 
a child, and heals as a child, he also acknowledges as a 
child. " Ye shall be my sons and my daughters, saith 
the Lord Almighty."§ Have you then found access to 
the gracious Being of whom we speak, has the feeble 
hand of your young faith touched but the garment of 
the Saviour, and has the plague within been healed, then 

* Mark V. 30. t Mark v. 34. | Philippians iv. 7. $ 2 Cor. vi. 18. 



LECTURE V. 273 

be assured that this mercy, great and wonderful, and 
undeserved as it is, does not stand alone. He who has 
pardoned your sin, has accepted your person, and now 
not only permits, but encourages you to rejoice in your 
adoption, and says, " Daughter, be of good comfort, go 
in peace."* This is, in fact, the one great privilege of 
the gospel. Take this from the believer, this spirit of 
adoption, this assurance of his sonship, and you leave him 
poor indeed. For there is no middle state here on earth, 
as there shall be no middle state throughout eternity. We 
are all and each either the children of God through Christ 
Jesus our Lord, having been reconciled and brought near 
by the blood of the cross, having been united to himself 
and carried into his family by the Spirit of adoption, or 
we are, at this moment outcasts and rebels, neither par- 
takers of his grace, nor preparing for his inheritance* 
If not children, then enemies ; but " if children then heirs, 
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."f How un- 
utterably solemn the alternative ! May no individual leave 
this house of God to-day, without"endeavouring to ascer- 
tain the truth as regards himself, his own soul, and his 
own adoption. May none be permitted to build himself 
up in a false and groundless hope, or in a delusive peace ; 
may none be satisfied until he has assuredly received that 
Spirit, for which none ever sought in vain, even " the 
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."J 

** While our Lord yet spake, there came from the ruler 
of the synagogue's house, certain which said, Thy 
daughter is dead, why troublest thou the Master any 
further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was 

*Luke viii. 48. t Romans viii. 17. t Romans viii. 15. 



274 LECTURE V. 

spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not 
afraid, only believe."* Perhaps our Lord knew that the 
ruler's faith was weak, as he most certainly knew the 
fiery trial it was about to be exposed to, and in nnercy 
to him permitted this miracle to be wrought, and that 
avowal of the poor woman to be made, upon which we 
have just been commenting, that his faith might be 
strengthened for the conflict that awaited it. It seems, 
at least, that some such thoughts were passing through 
the Saviour's mind, by those kindly-spoken words of 
strong encouragement with which he cheered him when 
he received the fatal message, " Only believe." It is, 
indeed, a little sentence, but we shall never see that man 
on earth who can, with profit, lengthen it. It has a rich- 
ness and a fulness which experience may, and, I trust 
in God, will teach you, but which words cannot describe. 
Would you learn its virtues, the wonder-working power 
of those short syllables? Go to the broken hearted sin- 
ner, see him watering his couch with his tears, over- 
whelmed with a burden from which the united strength 
of men and angels cannot set him free ; point that 
wretched and guilty creature to the cross of Christ, and 
to the Lord who hangs upon it, and say, '' Only believe." 
If the Spirit of God speaks them to the heart, while you 
address them to the outer ear, you will soon behold their 
wonderful effect ; the heavy burden, untouched by 
mortal hands, falls at his feet ; he who has taken it from 
him will bear it for him, and he shall feel it again no 
more for ever. Or go to the bed-side of the dying saint ; 
do fears and doubts oppress him ? is this the hour of 
Satan and of darkness? has he for a moment, amidst 

* Mark v. 36. 



LECTURE V. 275 

the clouds that overhang him, lost sight of the Star of 
Bethlehem? Whisper in the ear of that desponding 
follower of Jesus, these little words, " only believe." 
The shades of darkness will disperse, the scales will fall 
from his eyes, the anguish be removed from his soul, 
faith will again resume her throne, and all will be peace. 

Yes, Jesus himself had no higher and no better 
remedy for sin, for sorrow, and for suffering, than those 
two words convey ; at the utmost extremity of his own 
distress, and of his disciples' wretchedness, he could 
only say, " Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe 
in God, believe also in me."* Believe, " only believe." 

" And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the 
synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept 
and wailed greatly. And when he w^as come in, he 
saith unto them. Why make ye this ado, and weep? the 
damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed 
him to scorn,"-|- 

Who shall complain that they are subjected to the 
ridicule of the world, to the trial, as the apostle calls it, 
"of cruel mocking,"! when they behold their Lord, thus, 
at the very moment of exerting the highest attribute of 
Deity, " quickening whom he will," calHng the breath- 
less corpse to life again, " laughed even to scorn," by 
these poor fallen sons of earth ! How does our indig- 
nation rise and our heart burn within us, that the great 
God of heaven and earth should thus be ridiculed by 
the works of his own hands. 

Brethren, let us learn from it at least, patiently, if not 
cheerfully, to bear that, which even our Lord and 
Master has borne before us, and will bear with us ; re- 

* John xiv. 1. t Mark v. 38-40. t Hebrews xi. 36. 



276 LECTURE V. 

membering that " if we suffer with him, we shall also 
reign with him,"* and that a conformity w^ith him even 
in these, the least of trials, shall not be forgotten on 
that day when we shall be also *' glorified together."*]- 

" But, when he had put them all out, he taketh the 
father and mother of the damsel, and them that were 
with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. 
And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, 
Talitha, cumi, which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say 
unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, 
and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. "J 

How perfectly simple in every portion of this won- 
derful narration, how void of all display. If, as has 
been well observed, the very language in which our 
Lord speaks of heaven, marks him at once as an in- 
mate and a sovereign there, so does the very manner 
in which he performed the most stupendous of his mira- 
cles, almost as certainly as the miracles themselves, 
establish his divinity. No impostor coqld have been 
contented with such a total absence of all effort, all 
excitement, all display; our Lord appeared, if we 
may so say, scarcely conscious that any wonderful 
work was to be achieved. " Maid, arise," was the 
simple-language in w^hich he performed a deed which, 
in dignity and power, might rival the creation of a 
universe* And is it not often thus calmly, and quietly, 
and unobtrusively, that he still acts by his divine Spirit, 
when the yet greater work of the spiritual resurrection 
of a soul, dead in trespasses and sins, is to be perfected? 
Oftentimes, how often none can tell, a single discourse, 
a sentence, yea, even a word, has been blessed to this 

* 2 Timothy ii. 12. t Romans viii. 17. | Mark v. 40-42^, 



LECTURE V. 277 

great and wonderful end ; no effort visible, no display 
of majesty and power, except to the happy soul thu^ 
raised to spiritual life. But, as in the miracle before us, 
"When Jesus said, Arise, he took the damsel by the 
hand," so now, the word of Christ's power must be 
accompanied by the hand of his grace, ere the miracle 
of mercy can be wrought, for in vain do we exclaim, 
"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, 
and Christ shall give thee light,"* unless his arm be in- 
deed outstretched to draw you thence, and to give the 
spiritual life to which we call you. May that hand of 
mighty power be exerted among us this day ; that you, 
if there be but one who is still sleeping the sleep of sin, 
may hear that word, "Arise!" and be so shaken from 
your deathful slumbers, that nothing again shall tempt 
you to sleep upon your post; but being thus aroused, 
that you may forget those things which are behind, and 
reaching forth unto those which are before, be daily, 
hourly, constantly pressing forward for " the prize of 
the mark of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 
May we all feel how little, how less than little, there 
has yet been of spiritual life in our prayers, of active 
hoUness in our conduct, of an earnest, faithful, zealous 
devotedness to God in our daily conversation, that we 
may indeed arise, as those who are risen with Christ, 
and seek in earnest those things which are above, 
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty 
on high* 

* Ephcsians v. 14, 



24 



278 



LECTURE VL 



John vi. 37. 



% 
"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that 

Cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." 



The closing lecture for the present season brings us, 
as we find by the fourth verse of the chapter, to another 
Passover, being the third which occurred during the 
ministry of our Lord; one of those resting-places which 
we proposed to ourselves when we commenced this im- 
portant history. It is impossible to look back upon the 
road we have lately travelled, without being struck by 
the remarkable instances we have witnessed of the 
Divine power, and wisdom, and love, of our adorable 
Redeemer. Whether we view his wisdom, as mani- 
fested in that astonishing defence before the Sanhedrim, 
in which he proclaimed his divinity ; or his love, in 
pardoning the poor and sinful woman who washed his 
feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of 
her head ; or his power, in calling back the daughter of 
Jairus to life again ; we are equally constrained to say, 
" Surely this man was the Son of God."* But, brethren, 
this has been said and believed, and doubtless, is at this 
moment, by thousands, who possess no share in the 

* Luke xix. 14; John vii. 46, &c. 



LECTURE VL 279 

salvation, which " this man" preached^ and in the re- 
demption which he purchased. We do not, then, regret, 
that the last portion of Scripture upon w^hich we shall 
at present dwell, consists of a sermon rather than a 
miracle ; that the last passage of the mortal life of our 
Lord, which remains to be considered during the pre- 
sent season, will bring him before you, not demonstrating 
his Messiahship, or his divinity, but offering the blessed 
fruits of them to your souls; that the last words you 
will hear from his lips, will contain the very marrow 
and essence of the Gospel; and that if you were brought 
from the depths of heathen darkness, and placed for the 
first time this day, beneath the rays of the Sun of 
Righteousness, sufficient of them would, by God's 
grace, struggle through the clouds of human teaching, 
to kindle within your hearts that holy flame, which 
all the powers of evil should be unable to extinguish. 

The occasion of the divine discourse to which I refer, 
appears to have been the following. Many of the Jews, 
who had been partakers of the miraculous meal with 
which our Lord had so lately presented five thousand 
of his followers,-^ determined upon accompanying him 
whithersoever he went ; not, indeed, for the purpose of 
learning his doctrine, or from the feeling of love to his 
person, but simply from the unworthy motive of eating 
the bread of idleness, and feeding from^ time to time 
upon the miraculous food, which they now discovered 
that our Lord was well able to supply. For this most 
selfish object, they had traversed sea and land, until 
they had again overtaken Christ while tarrying at 
Capernaum.f 

*John?i 10. t John vi. 23, 24. 



280 LECTURE VI. 

Jesus, whose omniscience told him at once the extent 
of their labours, and the intention of them, no sooner 
beheld these worldly-minded followers again gathering 
round him, than he thus addressed them; "Verily, verily, 
1 say unto you, ye seek me not because ye saw the 
miracles;"* yet even this, we should have thought, 
would have been a motive snfficiently low and earthly, 
had it led to nothing further ; " but because ye did eat 
of the loaves, and were filled." " Labour not for the 
meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth 
unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give 
unto you."f They were, as we have seen, labouring 
and toiling, travelling by water, travelling by land, and 
all for what purpose ? Because they had eaten of the 
bread, and were filled, and hoped in a similar manner 
to be again rewarded. Therefore, our Lord addresses 
them, Ye are labouring for meat, but it is meat which 
perisheth ; if you would have that w^hich endureth, and 
endureth for ever, come, find it treasured up in me. 
How similar to the language w^ith which he had long 
before addressed the woman of Samaria: You are 
seeking for water ; ask of me, and I will give you the 
living water. What, then, is the great lesson which all, 
in every age, and in every clime, are instructed to de- 
rive from these replies of our divine Master 1 Brethren, 
it is this : Whether it be meat or drink, whether it be 
pleasure or profit, whether it be contentment or joy, 
whatever be the gratification you are seeking from the 
creature, it is really to be had only from the Creator. 
O, that men could be induced to believe this mighty 
truth, to take the Lord Jesus Christ at his word, and to 

* John vi. 26. t John vi. 26, 27. 



LECTURE VI. 281 

go to him and to him alone, for that peace, and rest, and 
sustenance, and enjoyment, which the whole world of 
created beings cannot give. When shall we be content 
to learn the consoling and encouraging lesson ? How 
many are there of you, whom I address at this moment, 
whose hearts are wounded with disappointment, or 
bleeding with anguish, or wearied with toil, because 
you have learnt it not. You have " laboured for the 
meat which perisheth," and are you surprised that it 
should perish? You have toiled for the waters of an 
earthly well, and do you mourn that they no longer 
stand at that well's brink? that, ever as you draw, they 
are receding, that a longer and a longer line is needed, 
that your labour is increased, and its fruits diminished ? 
Or more, do you grieve that your cisterns are broken, 
and your wells are dry ? Be not surprised at this ; it is 
the very condition of their existence. They are cisterns, 
not fountains; wells, not rivers. All that they once con- 
tained, and in which your hearts delighted, was poured 
into them by an unseen. Almighty hand, and when that 
hand has ceased to pour, those waters must subside ; and 
when that hand shall break those cisterns, the water must 
run out. Earthly blessings, possessions, relationships, 
must fail you; they would not be earthly if it were 
otherwise. Do you seek for those which endure, they 
are to be found in God, as revealed to us in Christ Jesus, 
and in him alone. Rest then from labours which are 
destroying your energies, and must end in disappoint- 
ments ; cease from expectations which this world can 
never gratify ; no longer indulge a grief w^hich distracts 
the heart, and carries away the affections, from him who 
alone is w^orthy of them, but concentrate every feeling, 
every expectation, every desire, in him in whom alone 

24* 



282 LECTURE VI. 

all fulness dwelleth. The heart which is fixed on God 
knows no distrustful thought, no abiding disappointment, 
no hopeless sorrow : it may labour for the meat which 
perisheth, but it will not toil for it, as those who have 
never tasted of the " hidden manna,"^ wherewith the 
Lord sustains his people ; it may mourn for earthly 
blessings too soon removed, but it cannot sorrow even 
for them, as others which have no hope. 

We call upon you, then, this day, to feed by faith on 
the Son of God, "for him hath God the Father sealed/'f 
God, in offering him to you, hath set to his seal, that 
there is a power, a richness, a fulness, a sufficiency, an 
all-sufficiency in Christ, which shall never disappoint 
you ; and you, in receiving his testimony, have " set to 
your seal that God is true."J Blessed Saviour, sealed 
by God the Father as the Priest, the Prophet, the King, 
the God of all thy believing people ! and blessed believer, 
sealed by God the Holy Ghost, as his redeemed, his 
disciple, his subject, his child, " unto the day of re- 
demption."§ 

In vain did the Jews attempt to turn aside, by the 
weapons of an earthly warfare, this one great lesson of 
the Bible, that the receiving of Christ, the coming to 
Christ, the feeding upon Christ, is alone the life of the 
Christian. Our Lord again and again returns to it, until 
he makes the truth so plain, the doctrine it contains so 
undeniable, that though many might, as many did, reject 
it, thanks be to God that no child in a Christian land is 
so ignorant as necessarily to misapprehend it. 

^^ And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life : 



* Rev. ii. 17. t John vi. 27. 

t Johu iii. 33. $ Ephesians iv. 30. 



LECTURE VI. 283 

he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that 
believeth on me shall never thirst."* 

In the former testimony, our Lord had declared that 
to all who came unto him, the Son of man would give 
the bread of Hfe. Here he distinctly states the glorious 
truth upon which we have been commenting, " I am 
the bread of life." 

We need not largely insist upon the importance of 
the metaphor. That the body may be nourished, it is 
not enough that the bread be of the finest wheat flour, 
that it be seen, that it be approved, that it be handled, — it 
must be eaten, or the famished wretch will die, though 
surrounded by an incalculable abundance. So it is with 
" the bread of life :" you may admire the Saviour, and 
love to hear of him ; you might, for many in the days 
of our Lord'vS earthly sojourn assuredly did so, you 
might see, and even " handle the word of life ;"f and 
yet have neither part nor lot in his salvation. That he 
may come as life to your soul, the Lord Jesus Christ 
must spiritually be fed upon ; he must be clearly and 
fully received in all his offices, and closed with, and 
embraced by, a true and living faith. It is then only 
that this gracious promise is fulfilled, that you shall 
never hunger, and never thirst, after those pleasures, 
profits, follies of the world, which are the worthless 
chaff, and yet which satisfy the worldly heart that feeds 
upon them. To tell you to look with no longing eye 
upon the world, is utterly vain, until not merely the eye, 
but the heart, has been fixed upon, and satisfied with, 
Christ Jesus : to direct you neither to hunger nor thirst 
for those miserable husks, and those stagnant pools^ 

♦ John vi. 35. t 1 John i. 1. 



284 LECTURE VI. 

which satisfy the worldling, is equally vain, until you 
have not merely tasted, but habitually fed upon the 
bread of life, and the waters of salvation, which are 
treasured up for you in Christ Jesus* It is then only 
that the fromise is fulfilled, " He that eometh unto me 
shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall 
never thirst."^ Perfectly fulfilled in this world of sin, 
it will never be ; there are in the heart, and in the mind, 
even of the most advanced believer, occasional break- 
ings forth of his vanquished appetites, and his subdued 
and chastened lusts ; he does from time to time, hunger 
and thirst for those things which are forbidden, but he 
does not gratify the appetite; Satan may spread his 
dainties for him, but he knows by painful experience, 
that Hke the apples of Sodom, though beautiful to the 
eye, they will turn to ashes in the mouth ; the world 
may, like Jael of old, bring him *' butter in a lordly 
dish ;" but he sees the nail and hammer which are be- 
hind, and he will neither sleep in her tent, nor eat at 
her table. 

In proportion as his soul is renewed by the Spirit of 
God, these earth-born appetites become more and more 
rare ; but be assured, there is no real remedy for them, 
but by daily, hourly feeding on him who is the bread of 
life, by going to Jesus for the satisfying of every appe- 
tite, and finding that refreshing food, that strengthening 
nourishment in him, which nothing but a continual 
living upon him can supply. 

My brethren, how often, how solemnly, how urgently, 
with how many entreaties and with how many prayers 
we have pressed this great gospel truth upon your at- 

* John vi. 35-. 



LECTURE VI. 285 

tention, God only knows. With what effect, that God 
who seeth the heart can alone pronounce, as he can 
alone produce it; but of this we are convinced, that if 
we have failed in the endeavour, " then is our preaching 
vain, and your faith is vain also ;"* " ye are yet in your 
sins."f For no religion which does not bring you to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and teach you to find all your 
hope, and all your life, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, 
as " hid with Christ in God,''J can stand in that day, 
when the wrath of God shall be abroad on the earth, or 
can save a soul alive. 

When our divine Master had spoken the words upon 
which we have been connmenting, he looked around 
him with the mournful feeling, that as regarded some 
at least of his hearers, they had been in vain, and said 
at once plainly and unreservedly, *' ye also have seen 
me, and believe not.''§ Then he adds, as if to derive 
consolation to his own soul, amidst so discouraging an 
aspect, " All that the Father giveth me shall come to 
me." Praised be God for this immutable and blessed 
promise ! There were seasons, apparently even to our 
Lord, when the hardness, and coldness, and unbelief of 
his hearers drove back his heart, if we may so say, 
from the stream of God's love which was then flowing 
on, like some richly laden river, through the continent 
of time, and upward to the fountain head of that love, 
seated in eternity before lime began. Thither did his 
lieart retire for that consolation, which the present cir- 
cumstances of his ministerial work did not afford him. 
There he dwelt in comfort on the eternal promise, " All 
that the Father giveth me, shall come to me ;"|| all, and 

* 1 Cor. XV. 14. t 1 Cor. xv. 17. t Col. iii. 3. 

$ John vi. 36. || Romans v. 11. * 



286 LECTURE VI. 

every one of them, shall feed by faith upon the bread of 
life ; not one sheep of the flock shall be shut out, not one 
lamb of the fold shall perish. 

Surely, if our divine Master could draw consolation 
from this high source, the weakest of his servants may 
w^ell be permitted to do the same. Yes, brethren, it is a 
blessed spring of consolation to know, that however 
weak and infirm the instrument who scatters it, the 
bread of life can never be cast forth in vain ; that from 
its smallest crumbs, some well-beloved child in God's 
redeemed family shall obtain spiritual nourishment and 
life ; that, sooner or later, all who are given to the eter- 
nal Son shall be fed, all shall be nourished, all shall be 
matured into the '' stature of the fulness of Christ Jesus 
our Lord."* But there is comfort in the reflection, not 
only to th^ ministers of God, but to his people. Do you 
never, when looking around you upon the multitudes 
engaged in folly and in sin, feel this desponding reflec- 
tion gaining ground upon your better judgment, how 
small is the company of true believers ! how few are 
there in every generation, who are here following, how 
few who shall hereafter dwell, with the eternal Lamb ! 
This is your consolation, whether they be many or few, 
man cannot determine, for no eye but the eye of God 
can see, no hand but his can register them, and doubtless 
many whom we number not, are entered there, in the 
volume in which their names are written, even in the 
Lamb's book of life : but this we know, that all, without 
a single exception, without one backslider, all whom 
the Father hath given to Christ, ^' shall come to him." 
There may be years of rebelKon, forgetfulness, and sin, 

* Ephesians iv. 13. 



LECTURE VI. 287 

<* nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, 
having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his."* 

While you derive great comfort and encouragement 
from this reflection, let it suggest to you great forbear- 
ance, great patience, and long-suffering towards even 
the worst of men. Do you behold a fellows-sinner who 
has run the lengths of riot, profligacy, and profaneness, 
from which, by God's restraining grace, you have been 
withheld ; deal tenderly with that man's feelings, cha- 
racter, soul. How know you not, that he may be 
among the number of those whom the eternal Father 
hath given to the eternal Son, and who shall, therefore, 
one day, come to him. Yes, even upon earth, that out- 
cast sinner may so far outstrip yourself upon the heaven- 
ward road, and in eternity may fill a place so near the 
throne, that you shall be immeasurably far below^ him. 

But if there be a lesson of Christian encouragement, 
and love, and tender compassion here, for everj^ be- 
lieving heart, is there no instruction in the words which 
follow^, for the sinner himself? There is, indeed, a lesson 
never taug;ht but in the school of Christ, and one which 
we pray God to carry home to the heart of every indi- 
vidual, who has not yet made his peace with God, and 
drawn near to, and actually closed with, the Redeemer 
of the world. It is conveyed in this blessed, this life- 
giving sentence ; " Him that cometh to me, I will in no 
wise cast out." While the believer may dwell with a 
holy delight and satisfaction upon the former portion of 
the text, let the unbeliever fix his thoughts and his atten- 
tion here. Grace, free, unmerited grace, is oflTered to 
' all, and to every child of Adam, by w^hom these words 

* 2 Timothy ii. 19; 



288 LECTURE VL 

are heard. We say to every individual among you, 
here is an offer of salvation to which no exception is 
made, no reserve attached. Are you willing to come 
to the Lord Jesus Christ, to accept his offers, to obey his 
laws ? Wait not then for a greater degree of moral 
fitness, or even for a stronger feeling of desire to come ; 
delay not for another, God only knows if you shall ever 
have another, invitation, but come unhesitatingly, and 
come at once. Do you reply, I am too sinful, too un- 
w^orthy, too polluted ; be assured, that your individual 
case, with all its unworthiness, its pollutions, its sins, 
was more perfectly known to, and present to, the eter- 
nal mind, at the very moment when the Saviour said, 
'' Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out," 
than it is at this moment known to yourself. Observe 
only the particularity of the promise ; although our Lord 
began the sentence by saying, " All that the Father 
giveth," he changes the person in that portion of it 
which he intended especially to apply to the sinner's 
heart, and says, not " them that come," but, " him that 
cometh ;" that no man, no woman, no child, might feel 
excluded. However disposed, therefore, you may be to 
dread, lest your own case should form an exception, be 
assured that there is not the slightest real or scriptural 
ground for it, for from such an invitation so expressed, 
by him who was perfect wisdom and truth, as well as 
perfect love, there is not, there cannot be, throughout 
all the generations of Adam, one living soul necessarily 
excluded. All who come, and each w^ho comes, shall 
be alike received and alike welcomed. But it is not 
only to the unbeliever, seeking a refuge and a home, 
that these words speak such powerful consolation ; there 
is no single point in the Christian's journey, from his 



LECTURE VI. 280 

first approach to a Saviour, to his final consummation 
in that Saviour's glory, to which they have not minis- 
tered contentment and peace. One of the most faithful 
followers of the Saviour with whom I have ever been 
privileged to hold communion here below,* assured me, 
after years of close and devoted fellowship with his 
Lord, that there were hours upon a bed of sickness in 
which every other text throughout the sacred volume 
appeared to fail him, and he was sustained by this alone. 
Wonderful pecuHarity of the bread of life, that the same 
portion which can nourish the child just struggling into 
spiritual existence, can maintain the full-grown man and 
strengthen the soldier of the cross, in the fiercest hours 
of his closing conflict. Are there any among you who 
are ever tempted in the days of sickness, or affliction, 
to fear, that though you once had hope in Christ, you 
possess an interest in him no longer ? In the words 
before you, you also may find peace : they tell you, 
though you may be cast down, though you may even 
for a season appear to be cast oflT, that you never shall 
be cast out : " I will in no wise cast out." Again, do 
you at such seasons fear that you have never had a 
saving interest in the Lord Jesus, that you have never 
yet really come to him ? It is often vain to contradict 
such an assertion, though it be false. Acknowledge, 
therefore, that it is the fact, that you have never yet 
closed with the offers of salvation, and we still repeat 
the invitation, " Come to him now." Apply this text to 
your heart, as if for the first time, and even so coming, 
his word is still the same, and never can be falsified ; 
** Him that cometh to me, I will in no w^ise cast out." 

* The late Irul^ pious, and highly intellectual Rev. John Sargeant, the 
biographer of Henry Martyn. 

25 



290 LECTURE VI. 

Time would fail me, were I to attempt to dilate upon 
all the powers of this wonder-working passage. True 
it is, that our Lord afterwards subjoins, " No man can 
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me 
draw him,"* because it is not, it has never been, it can 
never be, " of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, 
but of God that showeth mercy,"f that all the praise 
and all the glory may flow back to that eternal fountain 
of love where all is due. But this closes not the door, 
this narrows not the entrance. We dare not suppress 
these words of our Lord, because w^e are bound to 
" declare unto you the whole counsel of God ;"J and 
it might be said, that in speaking of the unfettered free- 
ness of the invitations of the Saviour, in declaring that 
all are invited, that all might come, we feared to ac- 
knowledge the absolute necessity of the divine drawing;. 
We would not knowingly suppress one Hne of gospel 
truth ; for however difficult or contradictory it may 
appear to our limited comprehension now, we are sure 
that every w^ord of God will one day be fully verified* 
Receive, therefore, the promise of the text, even coupled 
with this which some men denominate a restriction ; but 
before you term it so, fairly examine the passage, and 
see if it deserve the name. Do not look at it by the 
dim and feeble lamp of theological controversy, but in 
the warm sunshine of gospel truth, and of personal ex- 
perience. 

We ask, then, of every individual beneath this roof^ 
the simple question, have you never by your own ex- 
perience, felt the meaning of our Lord's declaration^ 
" No man can come to me, except the Father which 

* John vL 44. t Romans ix. 16. t Acts xx. 27. 



LECTURE VI. 291 

hath sent me draw him?" Has the Father never drawn 
you ? We might almost be content to rest the answer 
upon the events even of the present hour. Have you 
felt no desire, no passing inclination, since you have 
been within these walls to-day, while hearing of a 
Saviour's love, and of a Saviour's promises, to be your- 
self a participator in these blessings? Has not even 
this transitory feeling passed across your soul? Could 
they be mine without an effort, how gladly should I be 
a partaker. If, then, nothing more than this, the least, 
the faintest trace of all that I am describing, has been 
yours, even you can never say, I could not come to 
Christ, for the Father would not draw me thither. No, 
be assured that even you, on the last great day, if you 
reject these offers, resist this drawing, will, with every 
other impenitent unbeliever, be left speechless and with- 
out excuse ; for I shall not hesitate here to record, that 
the more I search God's holy word, the more I dwell 
upon his perfect character ; the more I hold communion 
with him whose name is love, the more entirely am I 
convinced, that there is no soul born into the world to 
whom the strivings of God's Spirit come not; that there 
is no individual upon earth, whom the Father draws not 
with such a degree of sweetness and of power, that he 
might come to him, who, if he came would " in no wise 
cast him out." 

My brethren, these are high, and holy, and heavenly 
mysteries; mysteries w^iich I cannot explain, because I 
cannot understand or fathom them; apparent contradic- 
tions which I am unable to reconcile ; difficulties which 
I cannot comprehend, and which while on earth, I am 
content to believe to be inexplicable. It is easy to form 



292 LECTURE VI. 

a system that should cut the knot which it is impossible 
to unravel; to say at once, as many bold men, and 
many good nien have not scrupled to say, Christ died 
for none but the elect, God drawls none but the elect, 
and therefore, none but the elect can come to Jesus; 
it is easy, by taking a partial view of divine truth, and 
then drawing our own deductions, to arrive at such 
tremendous simplicity as this, and thus to hold one 
complete and perfect system. But this I cannot do, 
for I declare, as in the presence of God this day, that 
it is my full conviction, that there is no human system, 
whether it be Calvinism, or Arminianism, which I have 
ever seen, that could bear to be placed side by side 
with the heavenly truth of God's Almighty word, and 
long run parallel with it. Perplex not yourselves, there- 
fore, with man's inventions, but draw your wisdom, 
your hope, your guidance, at once from Christ, your 
living Head. There is enough, without the incum- 
bering aid of human systems, in his divine word, for 
time and for eternity. All has one object and one end ; 
all points to Christ the Saviour of the world, and 
through him, by the eternal Spirit, to the Father. All 
clearly and unanswerably demonstrates this, that while 
the salvation of the sinner must originate in, be carried 
on, and perfected through the sovereign and undeserved 
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, the condemnation 
of the sinner shall be all his own, wrought out by his 
own corruptions, and perfected and sealed by his own 
obstinacy and perverseness. 

The effect of the discourse of our Lord, which we 
have this day been considering, is thus recorded by the 
evangelist : " Many of his disciples, when they heard 



LECTURE VI. 293 

this, said, This is an hard saying, who can hear it?"* 
And '' from that time many of his disciples went back, 
fend walked no more with him." Strange, indeed, if 
we knew not, alas ! too well, the insufferable pride of 
the human heart, that such should be the effect of truth, 
even when spoken by the God of truth himself. Watch 
carefully over your own hearts, my brethren, that it 
produce no such baneful fruits in you. You may avoid 
the hearing of painful or of humbling truths, you may 
reject the reception of them, but their truth you cannot 
shake, their strength you are unable to invalidate ; and, 
though you may close your ears or your hearts to them, 
throughout a long life here on earth, remember, there 
is an eternity awaiting you, to be employed in rejoicing 
in the happiness which these truths shall bring, or in 
for ever cursing the hour when you heard, but heeded 
them not. 

" Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go 
away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to 
whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal 
life.^t 

May this be the feeling and the decision to which, by 
the Spirit of God, all hearts here present may this day 
be brought. May no individual, who has attended upon 
these means of grace, during the present season, refuse 
to echo back from his heart those affecting words, 
" Lord, to whom" else " shall I go?"| The world can- 
not save me; even God himself will not receive me, 
unless I first go unto thee, O Lord, the great propitia- 
tion, the heavenly Intercessor, the alone Saviour of my 

* John vi. 60. t John vl 67. t John vi. 68. 

25* 



294 



LECTURE VL 



souL " Thou hast the words of eternal life ;" O speak, 
then, with such divine power and energy to my dying 
soul, that I may, by faith, "eat the flesh of the Son of 
man, and drink his blood,"* and have eternal life ; and 
be raised up at the last day. And may God of his infi- 
nite mercy hear, and answer, and fulfil the petition for 
you, for me, and for all, for his dear Son's sake, Jesus 
Christ. 

* John vi. 53, 



THE HISTORY 



OF 



OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
JESUS CHRIST. 



SECTION IV. 

FROM THE THIRB TO THE FOURTH PASSOVER IN OUR 
LORD'S MINISTRY. 



297 



LECTURE L 



Matthew xv. 28. 



" Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy 
faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was 
made whole from that very hour." 

The present section of the life in which we are en- 
gaged, commences with the beginning of the third year 
of the ministry of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Two of these important periods have been already con- 
sidered from this place : the last and most interesting is 
yet before us. Never did we apply ourselves to the task 
with deeper feelings of our inability to do it justice, 
than at the present moment ; never with a stronger con- 
viction of entire reliance upon the strength, and teaching, 
and guidance of that blessed Being of whom we are to 
speak ; and we may add, never with a more humiHating 
sense of our great need of your forbearance and your 
prayers. 

Brethren, pray for us, that what is spoken in our in- 
firmity may be made perfect in his strength, who de- 
lights to glorify himself by the weakness of means, the 
feebleness of instruments, the inadequacy of all secon- 
dary causes, that the Lord alone may be exalted, and 
that the excellency of the power may be of God, and 
not of man. 

The first incident in the third year of our Lord's 



298 LECTURE I. 

ministry, is recorded both by St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
in the fifteenth chapter of the former, and the seventh of 
the latter, in the details of the conversation betv^een our 
divine Master and the Pharisees, upon the subject of 
eating " bread with defiled (i. e. to say, with unwashen) 
hands," and " the washing of cups and pots, brazen 
vessels and of tables ;" in short, upon all those ceremo- 
nial observances which the Pharisees, rejecting the com- 
mandment of God, had invented for the purpose of 
establishing a religion of externals, in the place of that 
which purifies and regulates the heart. This creed of 
the Pharisees has been, in every age, the religion of 
nature, and is not unknown even in countries where the 
pure light of Christianity shines the most resplendently. ^ 
As long as it is easier to occupy ourselves in external 
observances than to improve in hoHness ; to perform a 
ceremony, than to fulfil a duty, or to correct an evil 
habit or temper ; so long will men in all ages, and under 
all dispensations, be liable to fall victims to the tempta- 
tion of preferring the outward signs of religion to its 
inward and spiritual grace ; so long even among Chris- 
tians, will ordinances be attended, and ceremonies valued 
for their own sakes, rather than, as they ought to be, for 
their effects in the promotion of true and vital godliness 
in the life and conversation. 

We might almost imagine that the incident which 
occurred next in order of time to the conversation we 
have referred to, had been selected by the evangeHsts, 
and placed in juxtaposition with it for the purpose of 
marking by its contrast, the high estimation in which a 
single spark of divine grace is held by that God, who 
forms his estimate of every action, by the state of the 
heart from which it springs, and who while he despises 
the most elaborate ceremonies of man's invention, delights 



r 



LECTURE I. 299 



in the smallest seed of spiritual life, which is sown by him- 
self. 

'' Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts," or 
rather into the confines, ** of Tyre and Sidon," and 
*' entered into a house, and would have no man know it, 
but he could not be hid ; for behold, a woman of Canaan, 
whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of 
him, and came out of the same coasts, and cried unto 
him, saying. Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of 
David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil."* 
She is called by St. Mark a Syrophoenician, the more 
usual name of part of anciept Canaan ; and a Greek, the 
general expression for a Gentile. 

The reason for which our blessed Lord desired espe- 
cially at this season to retire from the observation of men, 
and would have none made acquainted with the place of 
his retreat is not revealed to us. Perhaps the only cause 
for which any reference at all is made to the fact of his 
concealment may be simply to show the strength of ma- 
ternal tenderness, as manifested in ihe remarkable person 
to whom the incident refers. She had at home a daughter^ 
who was the subject of demoniacal possession ; and 
secret as our Lord's retirement might have been, and 
hidden as it was from the eyes of others, it could not 
escape the anxious searchings of a mother's love, per- 
haps the most powerful feeling by which the human 
heart is ever influenced. 

This at once engages us on behalf of the applicant; 
we know that she is a parent and in sorrow; we are not 
ignorant of the merciful Being with whom she had to do ; 
and we feel an interest in the result of her petition. But 
then there is a feature in her history, of which we have 

* Mark vii. 24, 



300 LECTURE I. 

not yet thought, and which has pertained to none other 
that we have yet considered. She was a Gentile, all 
other applicants had been Jews ; she was of the accursed 
race of Canaan, w^hose Hves had been given to the 
sword of the Israelites by the express command of God 
himself. She had, therefore, no title to the covenanted 
mercies of God, which had been signed and sealed only 
for them "to w^hom pertained the adoption, and the 
glory, and the covenants,"* even to the believing chil- 
dren of the faithful Abraham. This consideration throws 
some doubt upon the success of her mission, and increases 
our anxiety to see the end. She addresses the Saviour 
so confidently and so appropriately, that we feel at once 
this can be no common case. " She cried unto him, say- 
ing, have mercy on me, O Lord thou Son of David."f 
Whence, as a Gentile, had she learnt, thus rightly, to 
know the genealogy of the Messiah ? and who had taught 
her to apply it to this obscure Stranger, who was now 
concealing himself in the most remote corner of Canaan, 
and to whom, so many far better read in scripture than 
herself, had denied the title ? How easy to make the in- 
quiry, how impossible to answer it ! Perhaps like Cor- 
nelius and Lydia, her heart had been opened, by God, 
to receive the knowledge of himself; perhaps, sur- 
rounded by the debasing errors of a most foul and pol- 
luting idolatry, she alone had faithful been among the 
faithless, and in many a silent hour, had dwelt upon the 
sacred page of Revelation, and meditated upon David's 
root and David's branch, until, like Simeon, she had 
been taught of God, to wait in prayer and hope, for the 
consolation of Israel. There is nothing improbable in 
the conjecture ; so far from it, that if it be not true, w^e 

* Romans ix. 4. t Matthew xv. 22, 



LECTURE t 301 

know not whence she could have derived a knowledge 
so correctly scriptural, or how she could, thus rightly, 
have addressed the Saviour of the world* 

We turn fronn the suppHant to the merciful Being to 
whom she spake, and how great is our surprise when 
we are told, " but he answered her not a word." How 
unlike the accustomed kindness of our Lord ! We have 
seen him eating and drinking wirh publicans and sinners, 
and replying to their inquiries. We have seen him seated 
by the side of the well^ ia deeply instructive converse 
with a Samaritan harlot* None so low, none so ignorant, 
none so guilty ; but he had words, and words of kind- 
ness and instruction for them all But here he was silent: 
nay, even his own disciples, who were not wont to feel 
more tenderly, or more readily than their Master, on this 
occasion appear almost as if they had exchanged natures 
with him. They cannot hear that mother's voice, un- 
moved ; and while Jesus is deaf to her entreaties, they 
take up her cause and intercede with him, " Send her 
away, for she crieth after us ;" yield to her requests, heal 
her daughter, fot it is wretched thus to listen to her re- 
iterated supplications. This indeed induces the Saviour, 
for the first time, to break silence, but it is in words more 
painful to the mourner than the most obdurate silence could 
have been. " He answered and said, I am not sent, but 
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel ;" a refusal, ap- 
parently the sternest, and the harshest that ever passed 
the Saviour's lips. Now mark its effects upon the apph- 
cant. Does it drive her from him ? Does it send her 
away in despair? No, it brings her imrrediately to his 
feet. "Then came she and worshipped him, saying, 
Lord, help me/' Blessed proof that the heart is right 
with God, when every mark of his chastening, every in- 

26 



302 LECTURE I. 

fliction of his love, only draws us the more closely to 
himself. " As for the ungodly, it is not so with them ; 
but they are like the chaff which the wind scattereth 
away from the face of the earth."* Every breath of 
God's chastening being to them as the blast of his dis- 
pleasure, and driving them but the farther from the pre- 
sence of his glory. 

O that the language of our hearts may be, in the 
words of one of God's people of old, " When the flail 
of affliction is upon me, let me not be as the chaff which 
flies in thy face, but as the grain which lies at thy feet*'^ 
That it was so with the Canaanitish woman, is evident 
from the story; she who had followed, at a distance, 
during our Lord's forbidding silence, only drew the 
nearer in consequence of his more forbidding reply. 
" Lord, help me," contains the whole of her desires ; 
she was wilHng to leave both the measure and the 
manner of the help, to him of whom she asked it. 
She has told him of her case, and she believes that he 
is too good, too skilful a Physician to need a syllable 
beyond the one short sentence, by which she places it 
unhesitatingly in his hands, to deal with it as seemeth 
him best. 

It is a blessed thing, brethren, when in an hour of 
anxiety, we are content thus to place a blank in the 
hands of God, with sufficient confidence in his wisdom, 
and in his love, to feel assured that he will fill it wisely 
and tenderly; to cry from the dictate of a simple faith, 
"Lord, help me,*' and to be content, although that help 
come in far different guise, from what we looked for. 
But the trial of this poor suppliant was not yet over* 
Jesus knew that he had to deal with a disciple, whose 

* Psalm i. 5. 



LECTURE I. 303 

faith was of the highest order, and, therefore, he hesi- 
tates not to put it to the severest test. Throughout all 
Scripture, we read of but one who was dignified with 
the title of the Father of the faithful ; and throughout 
all Scripture, we never read of a second, who was 
commanded to sacrifice an only son. "Jesus answer- 
ed and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, 
and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord, yet 
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their mas- 
ter's table."* 

How invincible a faith, what wonderful perseverance, 
what deep humility. The Saviour could not cast her 
lower than she was well content to cast herself No 
term of reproach that he could apply to her, which she 
was not most willing to accept, and from which she 
could not gather arguments for his mercy. Even the 
very depth of her degradation, only forms a stronger 
plea for the extension of his love. If a dog, then still 
one of the household ; wdth no title indeed to the chil- 
dren's bread, but with a stronger claim upon the crumbs 
than one more distant, though less degraded. 

Does any one among you feel himself to be^ at this 
moment, so far from God, that the rays of divine mercy 
have not yet travelled down through so great a distance; 
an alien, an outcast, a sinner, yea, the very chief of sin- 
ners; and shall this conviction stop your cry for mercy, 
and render you incompetent to pray ? No, take encou- 
ragement from this Gentile woman; make the very depth 
of your degradation a plea with God for the outpouring 
of his mercy. He has bread for children, but are there 
no crumbs for dogs ? Yes, be assured, that if under the 
old dispensation, confessedly one of severity, there was 

* Matthew XV. 26, 27. 



304 I.ECTURE I. 

still, after the family and the household had been fed, 
bread enough and to spare, even for the dogs of the 
flock; under the gracious dispensation beneath which 
we live, far more than this may reasonably be expected; 
not only that the dogs shall be fed, but that none are so 
unclean, none so separate from God, but that, if they seek 
it, they shall receive cleansing, and food, and raiment, 
and reconciliation, and adoption. Only ask in faith, 
nothing wavering, and you shall have more than crumbs, 
you shall feed fully upon him who declared, '^ I am the 
bread of life, and of whom if a man eat, he shall live 
for ever. 

" Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, 
great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And 
her daughter was made whole from that very hour."* 
Here we behold the Saviour once more in his own true 
and blessed character : painful as his reserve and un- 
kindness must have been to this poor woman, we can 
readily believe, that they were more painful to himself. 
Perfectly as he knew that her faith, though it were *' tried 
with fire," would be found unto praise, and honour, and 
glory, we cannot doubt, ahhough no such symptom is to 
be seen in the narrative, that he who thus for a short time 
placed her in the furnace, deeply sympathized with the 
sufferer. As the heart of the surgeon cannot but feel, 
although his hand will not tremble while he is probing 
the deepest and severest wound. 

Had we been present at the close of this instructive 
scene, our language of commendation would perhaps 
have differed widely from our Lord's ; we should have 
said, O woman, great is thy humility, great is thy 
patience under rebukes and disappointments, great is 

* Matthew xv. 28. 



LECTURE I. 305 

ihy perseverance in prayer : he contented himself with 
the commendation of a single grace, and that, not the 
most obvious, when he said, " Great is thy faith." While 
men only see the fruit and the branches, Christ sees and 
applauds the root from which they spring. It is faith 
alone which can put the crown upon the head of the 
Redeemer, and therefore, of all the graces which can 
occupy the heart, faith is pre-eminently that which " the 
King dehghteth to honour." 

It is profitable to dwell upon these instances of the 
Saviour's dealings with his people, while on earth, 
because they form-, as it were, epitomes of his trans- 
actions with them, even now while in the kingdom of 
his glory. Let us, then, for the purpose of strengthen- 
ing our faith, and increasing our love to Jesus, take as 
close a parallel as possible to the incident before us. I 
address, it may be, at this moment, some Christian 
parent whose heart for years has bled over the way- 
ward, the ungodly, conduct of a beloved child. You 
have made that child the subject of many an earnest 
and secret prayer, and yet no answer of peace has 
descended upon your soul. God has been silent: the 
Lord Jesus Christ has been silent ; the Comforter has 
been silent. Like the disciples of old. Christian friends 
and ministers have interceded for you, " Lord, send her 
away," answered and contented. Still the answer 
comes not; or, if it come, it seems in anger, rather 
than in mercy, and the increasingly devious course of 
the child, for whom you pray, is to you a more severe 
and agonizing reply, than the harshest answer to the 
Canaanite. And now you are tempted to despond; 
you cannot believe that there is mercy yet in store for 
you. How often does the Christian parent need a lesson 

26* 



306 LECTURE I. 

from this Gentile mother ! All this is but the trial of 
your faith : because your Lord sees that it is strong, 
and loves to exercise it; or because he knows that it is 
weak, and desires to strengthen it; but be assured, 
whatever be the motive from which he has thus trou- 
bled you, it cannot be to make you cease from de- 
siring that which is so evidently for God's glory, but 
to make you pursue it with greater faith, with more 
unabated energy, with more unwearied prayer. In 
the end, you shall reap, if you faint not ; for we can 
scarcely imagine that ever God refuses a crying child 
who makes the honour of his heavenly Father the limit 
of his prayer, and desires to ask according to the will 
of God. But then, brethren, in this, and in all other 
Christian trials, you need, what Christ declared that 
the Syrophoenician possessed, a ^^ great faith." Little 
faith, we grant, will save you, if it be but genuine; 
but little faith will never enable you to bear up under 
great trials, under severe and accumulated disappoint- 
ments, and against even the Lord himself, when he 
contendeth with you. It was this which so peculiarly 
set the stamp of value upon the faith of the Canaanitish 
woman; it was th!s which distinguished the prophet 
of old above his brethren, and enabled him to say, 
" Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall 
fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the oUve shall fail, 
and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be 
cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the 
stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the 
God of my salvation." No faith but a great faith, 
could have prompted this; as none other could have 
taught the patriarch Job to exclaim, " Though he slay 
me, yet will I trust him," Be content, then, with 



LECTURE I. 307 

nothing less than " great faith," the only stock upon 
which great humility and great endurance, great holi- 
ness and great love, will ever grow. 

The miracle which we have been considering was 
followed by others, so numerous and so astonishing, 
that we are told " the multitude wondered when they 
say the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the 
lame to walk, and the blind to see, and they glorified 
the God of Israel."* Then Jesus called his disciples 
unto him, and said, " I have compassion on the multi- 
tude, because they continue with me now three days, 
and have nothing to eat," — not intending to imply 
that they had fasted during three days; but that now, 
on the third day, their provisions were exhausted. <* I 
will not send them away fasting," continues our Lord, 
" lest they faint in the way. And his disciples say 
unto him. Whence should we have so much bread in 
the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude ^'f But 
what was impossible to the servant, presented no difl^i- 
culty to the Master. "Jesus saith unto them. How 
many loaves have ye? And they said. Seven, and a few 
Httle fishes. And he commanded the multitude to sit 
down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves 
and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and 
gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 
^And they did all eat, and were filled ; and they took up 
of the broken meat that was left, seven baskets full 
And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside 
women and children," 

Brethren, we rejoice that needing as we do at the 
present moment every encouragement, so stupendous 
an instance of our Redeemer's power and love, should 

* Matthew xv. 31. t Matthew xv. 32, 33. 



308 LECTURE I. 

occur thus at the commencement of our present labours. 
We desire to see in it an omen for good, upon the 
course of spiritual instruction on which we have this 
day entered. We would pray for you and for our- 
selves, for the same faith here manifested by the multi- 
tude and by the disciples — for you, that you may, like 
those of whom we have just read, come as the followers 
of Jesus; that you may come in the spirit of depen- 
dence and prayer; expecting a spiritual feast, but not 
from man ; that you may sit down hke the multitude, 
without questioning the power of him who is to provide 
the food, and in the fullest, firmest belief, that it shall be 
provided, and that an unseen hand shall convey it into 
your souls : and for ourselves, that we may " take 
courage," though the numbers to be fed be large and 
the provision scanty, though we shall be often tempted 
despondingly to ask, whence shall we find " so much 
bread as to fill so great a multitude ?" Though we 
have no stores of our own from which to furnish forth 
a table in the wilderness, yet that our Lord will suffer 
none who hunger and thirst after righteousness to *' faint 
by the way," through our inability to feed them. No, 
we are constrained to believe tha- he who in breaking 
the seven loaves so multiplied them in the hands of the 
disciples that they became sustenance for four thou- 
sand people, will still be present to stand between oui; 
poverty and your necessity; and as that merciful Being 
alone can bless the meal, so will he himself provide the 
bread; and while he gives it into our hands to distribute 
to you, will, of his abundant mercy take care that every 
one who hungers shall be fed, and that all who are fed 
shall be filled. 



309 



LECTURE 11. 



John vii. 37. 



" In the last r'ay, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, 
saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 

After the miraculous feeding of the four thousand 
persons with the seven loaves, our Lord entered into a 
ship and went into the parts of Dalmanutha ; thence, 
having made a circuit through the villages of Caesarea 
PhiHppi, and sojourned some time in Galilee, he re- 
turned to Capernaum. During this journey the re- 
markable conversation with St. Peter occurred, when 
that apostle, instructed by no human teacher, pro- 
nounced our Lord to be, not merely " the Christ," but 
" the Son of the living God ;"* and for this confession 
of the divinity of the Saviour, received the peculiar 
blessing of his Master. Six days after, our Lord 
vouchsafed that astonishing manifestation of himself 
upon Mount Tabor, which has usually been termed 
his transfiguration; when, with Moses and Elijah, he 
appeared before the astonished eyes of Peter, James, 
and John, in that glorified body, in which he shall, 

* Matthew xvi. 16. 



310 LECTURE 11. 

probably, one day, manifest himself to assembled 
worlds. 

Having upon a former occasion* spoken fully upon 
these instructive incidents, we shall pass on to the next 
event in the Ufe of our divine Saviour. We find, then, 
that after having commissioned the seventy disciples, 
and " sent them two and two before his face into every 
city and place whither he himself w^ould come," he is 
again about to go up to Jerusalem, to attend the feast of 
Tabernacles.f 

The origin of this feast is to be found in the 24th 
chapter of Leviticus, where we read, " In the fifteenth 
day of the seventh month," " ye shall keep a feast unto 
the Lord seven days. And ye shall take you, on the 
first day, the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm 
trees, and tha boughs of thick trees, and willows of the 
brook, and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, 
seven days," " It shall be a statute for ever in your 
generations." " Ye shall dwell in booths seven days ; 
all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths." And, 
then is added, the remarkable reason for this most ap- 
propriate festival, " That your generations may know 
that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, 
when I brought them out of the land of Egypt."J 

This festival was most scrupulously observed by alt 
the pious Jews ; and although, when they had built 
themselves cities, and dwelt therein, the. observance 
must have been attended with considerable trouble and 
inconvenience, we are told by the Jewish writers,§ that 
it was by no means discontinued, but that arbours were 
made on the flat roofs of their houses, and in their court- 

* In the 4th Lecture on " The History of St. Peter." t John vii. 2. 

t Leviticus xxiii. 43. $ See also Nehemiah viii. 14-18, 



LECTURE II. 311 

yards, and in the streets ; and that duruig the seven days 
of the continuance of this festival, the Jews left their 
houses empty, and removed their furniture into these 
tabernacles, and dwelt in them entirely. 

To this feast, the brethren of our Lord, according to 
the flesh, but who were evidently not converted by the 
Spirit, — for "neither did his brethren believe in him," — 
now urged him to repair. For the present, he declined 
following their advice ; but after they had departed, 
" then w^ent he also up unto the feast, not openly, but, as 
it were, in secret."* 

During the three first days of the feast, our Lord, in 
all probability, mingled silently with -his fellow-worship- 
pers unnoticed; but, "about the middle of the feast," 
says St. John, "Jesus went up into the temple, and 
taught." Every day, during that feast, a certain number 
of oxen w^ere sacrificed to God, the temple was crowded 
with worshippers, and at night richly illuminated ; as 
were the thousand arbours, which glittered like stars 
over the face of the city ; while, doubtless, these out- 
ward demonstrations of pious and holy gratitude, in 
many cases, sprang from hearts filled with a real, fer- 
vent love to him whose mercies to their forefathers they 
thus recorded; and, perhaps, not a few were ardently 
longing to see again the stranger whom they had met 
with, when, a few months before, they had come up to 
the Passover, the sound of whose voice still lingered on 
their car, while " the gracious words which proceeded 
out of his mouth," had never since departed from their 
hearts. 

These expectations were fulfilled; for, as we have just 

* John vii. 10. 



312 LECTURE II. 

read, Jesus again " taught in the temple," openly, pub- 
licly, and amidst the thousands that resorted thither. 
Struck with the solemn and heart-awakening words 
which he uttered,— for " never man spake like this man," 
— his audience, many of them probably, simple-minded 
people from the distant parts of Judaea, since all assem- 
bled at the feast, began to experience great astonishment, 
and exclaim, " How knoweth this man letters, having 
never learned ?" 

I know not why it should be considered, as it usually 
is, that there was anything invidious in the observation ; 
it seems to be the natural expression of surprise from 
those, whoj judging of the station in life of the speaker, 
by his appearance, and concluding that he had enjoyed 
few outward advantages, felt astonishment, that he 
should teach so wisely, and so well. The an&wer of our 
J^ord rather appears to corroborate this opinion ; He 
replied, " My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." 
^ Are you astonished at its sublimity, at its wisdom, at 
its excellency and powder ? I refer you from myself to 
God, it is not mine alone, but his ; and I receive it^ as 
man, from the Eternal Father.' Invaluable model, at 
all times, for the Christian minister; by it he may learn 
to refer his hearers, from himself, to him that sent him; 
to carry them back, at once to the source, even to the 
Lord Jesus, to God himself. Brethren, do you value the 
truths you hear from this place ? they are ttot ours, but 
God's. Does any word here spoken, ever come home 
with power to your heart, as a word of warning, or of 
encouragement, or of comfort ? here again, it is not ouri», 
but God's ; all the *« excellency and the power" are of 
him, and to him be all the praise, and all the glory." 

Our Lord continues, " If any man will do his will, he 



LECTURE li. 313 

shall kiiow of the doctrine^ whether it be of God, or 
whether I speak of myself." How truly encouraging 
must this declaration have been, to persons such as we 
have reason to believe at this time surrounded the 
Saviour of the World ; men who, perhaps with the excep- 
tion of the three yearly festivals, which brought them 
up to the great city^ were continually employed in agri- 
culture, or in the humble but engrossing occupations of 
life, to some one or other of which every Jew was edu- 
cated ; and who had, therefore, but very transient op- 
portunities of ascertaining the all-important fact, whether 
this were indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the wojdd. 
However well read they might be in *' all that the pro- 
phets had spoken," to them it was no easy task, to as- 
certain whether they were certainly fulfilled in Jesus of 
Nazareth, and whether he who spake thus marvellously, 
were indeed the promised Messiah, the Word of God. 

The comforts and encouragements of the promise be- 
fore us, however, were never intended to be confined to 
the Jews, assembled at that feast of tabernacles. Are 
there none, even in a Christian country, — -are there not 
many in every congregation ?— who, if they rightly un* 
derstood these words, would bless the Saviour who de- 
livered them, for so simple, so undeviating a rule, by 
which the poor and ignorant shall understand those 
mysteries which are hidden from the worldly wise, only 
that they may be revealed unto babes. 

Dwell, then, for a moment, upon this remarkable de- 
claration, and carry it with you as a golden rule for 
scriptural interpretation^ a never-failing key for the 
casket of the revealed word. " If any man will do his 
will, he shall know of the doctrine." ** Any man ;" not, 
therefore, merely the wise man, or the learned man, or 

27 



314 LECTURE 11. 

the clever man, but all, all and each, shall arrive at 
right results upon the great and vital truths of Chris- 
tianity, if they but accompany their search by a holy 
obedience to God, a heartfelt endeavour to act up to the 
degree of light which they have already received. 

Do you ever, when you have engaged in the reading, 
or when you come to the preaching, of God's word, 
depart unedified and unconvinced, finding, it may be, 
truths which you cannot appreciate, doctrines which 
you cannot receive or understand? and do you depart 
in a spirit of captious criticism, to discuss, and to reason, 
and to " darken counsel with words ?" Brethren, this is 
not the way to become " mighty in the Scriptures ;" this 
is not God's method of teaching his wonderful, and 
difficult, and life-giving doctrines. No, when doubts and 
difficulties assail you upon any of the essential lessons 
of Christianity, first make of your own heart this deeply 
important inquiry, Is my life regulated by those truths 
which I already know? Is there any thing, which I 
have reason to believe is according to the will of God, 
which is not according to my practice? If you are 
Compelled to answer in the affirmative, then there is 
obviously at least one stumbling-block to be removed ^ 
before you can hope to be made wise unto salvation. 
The veil is not upon your eyes, but upon your heart. 
Instead of cavilling, go home and pray. Instead of 
cultivating a spirit of argument, strive for a spirit of 
holiness ; you will yourself be astonished, how exactly, 
in proportion as you are giving up sinful practices, 
questionable pleasures, ungodly habits, and advancing, 
as far as in you lies, in all holy obedience to the com- 
mandments of God, will be your increase in the know- 
ledge of God's revealed will, and your discovery of 



i 



I 



LECTURE II. 315 

every vital doctrine of his word. Have you never ob- 
served, on some clear night, while looking upward at 
the heavens, that although at first all is obscurity, yet a 
little while, and star after star shines out, till that which 
even now was utter darkness, is studded over with in- 
numerable lights ? Just so it is with the firmament of 
God's revealed and written word; you cannot find a 
portion now so obscurely dark, but that to you, if thus 
in God's appointed way you are content to search it, 
and to dwell upon it, truth after truth shall be elicited, 
until the whole of the great and glorious scheme of man's 
redemption shall be laid open to your eye, and every 
separate truth, essential to salvation, shall shine out most 
clear and luminous to your apprehension, and, by God's 
grace, be applied savingly to your soul. Thus was it, 
even while the conversation upon which we are com- 
menting was going forward : truth after truth was mani- 
fested by Jesus unto his hearers, until some were as- 
tonished, and convinced, and converted; and, as the 
evangelist tells us in the thirty-first verse, " Many of the 
people believed on him." 

No sooner did the Pharisees hear this, than they re- 
solved to expedite their schemes of cruelty, and sent 
officers at once to take him. Then, in the presence of 
the multitude, and even of the officers themselves, our 
Lord thus expressed himself; ^' Yet a little while I am 
with you, and then I go unto him that sent me: ye shall 
seek me, and shall not find me, and where I am, thither 
ye cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves. 
Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? Will he 
go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the 
Gentiles ? What manner of saying is this, that he said> 



316 LECTURE II. 

Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me ; and where I 
am, thither ye cannot com.e?''* 

Well might they ask, " What manner of saying is 
this ?" It was impossible for spirits such as theirs to 
enter into the meaning of such a declaration, " Yet a 
little while I am with you," In the very presence of 
the men who were sent to arrest him, our Lord speaks 
as confidently of the time which still remained for him 
to continue his ministrations, and therefore as decidedly 
of the inability of his enemies to effect their purpose, 
until his time was come, as if he had been at the head 
of " more than twelve legions of angels," which he de- 
clared were ready to obey his summons. 

'^ Then I go unto him that sent me." " Will he go 
unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the 
Gentiles ?' asked the blind and ignorant Jew ; or did he^ 
mean to speak of something more than a mere journey, 
a flight from his pursuers ? Yes, impossible as it ap- 
peared to spirits such as theirs, Jesus in these few and 
tranquil expressions, was speaking of his last removal 
from the presence of them that hated him ; and when 
he said, " Yet a little while, and then I go unto him that 
sent me," he had in his omniscient mind, all the agony 
of Gethsemane, and all the horrors of the cross. We 
cannot doubt it ; and well does it mark the voluntary 
nature of that high sacrifice, that he who was shortly to 
be its victim, could speak thus calmly of going in his 
own good time, and of not being driven at the will of 
his enemies, to the Father from whom he came. Happy 
that child of God among ourselves, who in the near 
approach of the hour which is to separate him from all 

* John vii. 33-36. 



LECTURE II. 317 

below, can look thus peacefully forward, and say with 
his ever blessed Master, " Yet a little while, and then I 
go unto him that sent me ;" I am but a stranger and a 
pilgrim here ; yet a little while, and I go home. 

There is, however, another lesson, and a very solemn 
one, to be taught by these brief sentences. What our 
Lord then said to those around him, is as literally true 
to all. It speaks, therefore, to every soul here present 
before God this day. To each one among us, it is " but a 
little while" that the Gospel of Christ shall be preached, 
and the Saviour himself presented. It can but be a 
little while ; life itself deserves no better phrase. And 
how much of that short space is now already over? how 
much had passed away, before, perhaps, the Saviour 
was ever really offered to us in all his fulness and his 
love ? How much is now remaining 1 How long will 
he continue to " stand at the door, and knock ?' '' Of 
the times and the seasons knoweth no man ;" but this 
we know, that most certainly the 'Mittle while" has 
become less, even since we entered these doors to-day ; 
perhaps it is, almost, wholly over, and if the glass of 
time were now held forth before our eyes, some of us 
might almost count the grains of sand which still remain, 
and which have yet to fall, before we hear the bride- 
groom's cry ! 

We have still to consider the last sentence which our 
Lord dehvered on that middle day of the feast, and one 
well calculated to find a passage to the soul, " Ye shall 
seek me, and shall not find me ; and where I am, thither 
ye cannot come." 

Brethren, if the warning note which has been already 
struck, by the shortness of time, the nearness of eternity, 
" the Uttle while," that Christ is with you, has not reached 

27* 



318 LECTURE II. 

your hearts, listen but a moment to this, his still more 
awful denunciation; "Where I am, thither you cannot 
come." You do not earnestly seek him now; you never 
have, in sincerity, and faithfulness, and prayer, so sought 
him; be warned, then, of this solemn truth, that it is 
possible to knock when there shall be none to open ; to 
ask when there shall be none to give ; to seek when you 
shall not find ! While for those who desire no com- 
munion with their Redeemer here ; who <' will not have 
this man to reign over" them now ; it is unalterably de- 
termined that they shall never see him in the kingdom 
of his glory : " Where I am, thither ye cannot come." 

The transactions upon which we have been com- 
menting, occurred about the midst of the feast, which 
would be the fourth day ; and as we are not informed 
of any particulars respecting our Lord on the following 
days, it is probable that he remained in silence, to avoid 
the persecution of the rulers. But the eighth day was 
now approaching, after which the multitudes would 
again leave the metropolis, and depart to their distant 
homes, 

Jesus, whose heart still yearned over those, who 
were putting from them the word of God, and judging 
themselves unworthy of everlasting life, resolved, there- 
fore, upon making one last effort for their salvation, 
and offering one of the freest and most blessed of his 
promises. 

Accordingly, " on the last day, that great day of the 
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, 
let him come unto me and drink."* It is impossible 
to imagine a season better fitted for his purpose since 

* Verse 37, 



LECTURE II. 319 

the law declares, " On the eighth day shall be an holy 
convocation unto you ..... it is a solemn assembly, 
and ye shall do no servile work therein."* Jesus 
would, therefore find the assembled worshippers again 
together; and every servile work being suspended, their 
number would, no doubt, be greatly increased by the 
lower orders of the city. He would thus insure an 
opportunity of speaking once more to the multitude, 
which would, probably, never again re-assemble, until 
it meets before his judgment-seat. 

To the other ceremonies of that high day, the tradi- 
tions of the elders had added one, which, however 

, useless and unnecessary, cannot but be pronounced to 
have been very significant, and very beautiful. A 
golden vessel was carried down to the pool of Siloam, 

, and having been filled with its water, it was brought 
back again to the temple, amidst the blowing of trum- 
pets, and the shoutings of the people, and poured forth 
upon the ascent to the altar, with great ceremony and 
many demonstrations of joy, so that it was a saying 
among the Jews, " He that never saw the rejoicing of 
the place of drawing of water, never saw any rejoicing 
in his life." 

It w^as, then, on this day, and probably at the very 
hour of this singular ceremony, when all eyes had been 
intent upon the mystical rite of bringing up the waters 
of Siloam, that our Lord ascended to the temple. Let 
us for a moment place ourselves at his side ; let us ima- 
gine that we see him standing on the highest point of 
the ascent, and there •looking down on the assembled 
muhitude, crying aloud those words of merciful invita- 

* Leviticus xxiii. 36, 



320 LECTURE II. 

tion, which the evangelist has recorded, "If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." 

Now let us mark their effect on the thousands who 
attended that great festival On one side, we behold a 
crowd so intent upon the pouring forth of the water, 
and all the outward forms and ceremonies attached to 
it, that they have not heard the Saviour's cry. On 
another, we see a group of persons, so occupied with 
their own conversation, or so much engaged in the 
thoughts of the business and pleasures of life, which 
have been for a short time suspended, but to which they 
are now immediately retui*ning, that they are not suffi- 
ciently interested in the invitation of the Saviour, even 
to ask an explanation, still less to desire to be themselves 
partakers of the blessings ^hich he proffered. Of all 
the thousands clustering rwnd that hill, and within 
hearing of the Saviour's voice, perhaps we should 
scarcely have seen a single person at once arrested by 
the sound of the offer, and coming up humbly, yet 
boldly and unhesitatingly, to our Lord, and saying, in 
the language of the woman of Samaria, " Sir, give me 
this water, that I thirst not."^ No, some were too in- 
tent upon the fornis to think of the spirit of holiness; 
some too deeply occupied, others too recklessly idle 
and indifferent, to close at once with the merciful invi- 
tation. We hear, indeed, that many said, " This is the 
Prophet;" and some, that "This is the Christ;" but 
these are widely different things from coming at once 
to the feet of our Redeemer, and saying, 'Lord, be my 
Prophet to teach, my Saviour to redeem me from all 
iniquity, and to accept, and sanctify my soul' And so 

* John iv. 15. 



LECTURE II. 321 

it will probably be to-day. How many, who will hear 
that in Christ Jesus, and in him alone, are treasured up 
the waters of life, how few who will close with those 
offers, and resolve from this hour, to give up all that has 
hitherto stood between their Saviour and their souls, 
and come, at once, to him for pardon and for peace. 
Still would we desire to leave you with the words of 
the text upon your ear, praying God they may descend 
into your heart, " If any man thirst, let him come unto 
me, and drink." There is nothing to control, nothing 
to abridge this invitation ; it is free as the air you 
breathe, and yet firm as the earth you tread upon. But, 
are there any among you, who have so long preferred 
the broken cisterns to the living fountain, that you feel 
' this cannot be addressed to me V be assured that you 
are mistaken; though you have drunk at every polluted 
pool of this world's vanities and pleasures, if only now 
you thirst for the living water, it shall be yours, and 
yours as certainly, and as freely, as if you had never 
had any wish, or one desire beyond it. 

Or, have you tried all other sources of relief, and 
found all fail you ; and do you shrink from the thought 
of coming now to Christ, lest he should remind you of 
your worthlessness, and take advantage of your neces- 
sity? It is plain you do not know the Saviour, with 
whom you have to do ; all he requires at your hands, 
is the deep sense of this poverty, of which you are 
ashamed. There is no need of shame for this; be 
ashamed of your sins, of your indifference, of your 
neglect of Christ, but be not ashamed that you begin to 
feel it; the more you are conscious of your poverty, 
your emptiness, your thirst, the more will he delight 
to bestow upon you his riches, his fulness, his living 
water. 



822 LECTURE II. 

Or lastly, and how many are at all times kept away 
from Christ, by this conviction; do you fear that the 
promise speaks no word of comfort or encouragement 
to you, because it only proffers its blessings to them 
that thirst, and you are afraid to use so strong a term 
for so weak a feeling as your own; you are even con- 
strained to confess that you never yet have thirsted 
either for the water of life, or for him from whom it 
flow^s. Even here there is no cause for despondency ; 
your case is not hopeless; the Saviour, of whom we 
speak, delights to give the thirst, that he may be able 
to bestow the water of life. 

Be assured, that if there be one soul among you who 
is saying at this moment, * God, who knows the heart, 
knows that I would gladly come, if I could but thirst 
for all these spiritual blessings, which are treasured up 
for the believer in Christ Jesus,' we say, unhesitatingly, 
to that soul, Come, the way is open to you ; pardon for 
sin, and reconciliation to God, are offered you ; Christ 
and his Spirit are your own ; come with the little thirst 
you now possess, and you shall find that every step by 
which you approach the Saviour, shall increase that 
thirst, until your desires for God and his grace, for the 
Holy Ghost and his influence, for Christ and his salva- 
tion, shall be so large that nothing but himself can 
satisfy them. 

*' The Spirit and the bride say. Come ; and let him 
that heareth say. Come ; and let him that is athirst 
come ; and whosoever will, let him take of the water 
of life freely."^ 

* Revelation xxii. 17. 



323 



LECTURE III. 



St. John xi. 43. 



" And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Laza* 
rus, come forth." 



It is one of the peculiarities, I had almost said, one 
of the disadvantages, of the sublime history in which 
we are engaged, that its most interesting features are 
in themselves so touchingly simple, that every addition 
which man attempts to make to them, only impairs 
their beauty, and detracts from their perfection. This 
may be well illustrated by the incident at which we 
arrive to-day, where the whole affecting story is told 
with such inimitable propriety, that nothing which man 
can add can increase its interest, or enhance its useful- 
ness. With the fullest conviction of this truth, my en- 
deavour shall be to let the inspired historian speak his 
own language, adding a very few and brief observations, 
which, like the darker shadings of the picture, will de- 
rive their only value from affording a contrast to its 
richer colouring, and brighter lights. 

The evangelist thus commences, " Now a certain 
man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town 
of Mary and her sister Martha."* 

* John xi. 1. 



324 LECTURE III. 



The family to whom St. John thus, for the first time 
introduces us, have not been left wholly unnoticed by 
the preceding evangelists, for by an allusion at the close 
of the 10th chapter of St. Luke, we find our Lord, pro- 
bably on his return to the country from the feast of 
tabernacles, resting at the house of Martha and Mary, 
which was situated at Bethany, just across the Mount 
of Olives, as you travel eastward from Jerusalem, and 
about two miles from the city. Both these pious 
sisters were affectionately attached to our Lord ; and 
although the elder manifested her affection by her con* 
stant and unwearied services for him, and the younger 
by sitting at his feet and hearing his word, there can 
be no doubt that each was equally the object of the 
Saviour's love, and preparing, though by a different 
education, for his kingdom and glory. 

Our Lord's visit appears to have been but short, per- 
haps a single night was all that he at that time spent 
beneath their roof; yet even those few hours of peace- 
ful converse must have been a delightful solace to the 
Saviour, after the last eight days of harass and fatigue 
which had been passed in Jerusalem ; while most blessed 
and most profitable must have been that season to the 
holy family who were so shortly to need every aid, 
which the recollection of a Saviour's love, and of a 
Saviour's counsel, could bestow. 

How frequently does our Lord, even at the present 
hour, thus preface some great temporal affliction, by 
equally great and unexpected spiritual blessings. Are 
there none, even among ourselves, who now, while look- 
ing back to days of trial, can see behind us vestiges of 
some visit from the Saviour, which had so armed our 
hearts and strengthened our hands against the day of 



LECTURE III. 825 

I 

affliction, that we were carried through it, assisted and 

supported by the memory of the past, almost as power- 
fully as by the outpouring of present grace and present 
consolation. It is delightful thus to trace our comforts^ 
and to draw our strength from a source which the world 
can never know, to see a hand they cannot see, and 
hear a voice they cannot hear ; while it adds a power- 
ful additional motive to prize every hour of spiritual 
communion, when we reflect that it may be the last 
opportunity that will be vouchsafed in which to arm 
ourselves against some dark temptation, some fearful 
trial, or some overwhelming visitation. 

After this short and passing visit, our Lord journeyed 
onward into Galilee. Days and weeks went by, marked 
by miracles of mercy, and words of instruction ; many 
of which have been recorded by the evangehsts, although 
many more have doubtless been suppressed ; and Jesus 
was now at Bethabara beyond Jordan,^ before we hear 
again of Martha and Mary. 

It was while our Lord ^' abode there/' says St. John^ 
that a messenger arrived from Bethany, the bearer only 
of this brief but affecting sentence, " Lord, behold, he 
whom thou lovest, is sick." Of Lazarus, the brother of 
Martha and Mary, and the subject of the message, we 
have never before heard, probably he was from home 
at the time of that short visit of the Saviour to which 
reference has been already made. However, the sisters 
were certainly right in thus describing him, for the 
inspired historian expressly says, that " Jesus loved 
Martha and her sister, and Lazarus." The message then, 
short as it was, said all they needed ; it communicated 

* John X. 40, 42. 

28 



326 LECTURE III. 

the brother's sufferings, and the sisters' anxieties ; they 
believed that if the Saviour were but with them, all 
would be well ; but did not ask him to return, they knew 
his considerate tenderness too well to think it necessary, 
and therefore contented themselves with the simple ex- 
pression of their need, leaving it to Christ himself to 
suggest the remedy. 

As soon as our Lord had heard the message, he as- 
sures his disciples that this sickness of their friend should 
not terminate fatally, i, e, should not finally be ** unto 
death," but should be for the glory both of God and of 
the Son of God ; and having said this, he appears to 
dismiss the subject from his thoughts, occupying himself 
in his daily round of mercies, and remaining for two 
days longer in Bethabara. 

How differently, in the mean time, passed those hours 
to the inhabitants of that sorrowing house in Bethany. 
How did they watch the return of their messenger ! 
How did they calculate the days that must elapse before 
he could reach the Saviour ; how certain did they feel, 
that he would not return alone ; how often, like the 
mother of Sisera, had they " looked out at the window^ 
and cried through the lattice,"* Why is he so long in 
coming? Why does the Saviour tarry, since by this 
time he must have been made acquainted with our deep 
and pressing necessity* While probably from time to 
time, they gazed intently upon the sufferer's face, hoping 
suddenly to see the flush of health return, and the fever- 
fly, at some word of sovereign power, spoken, perhaps, 
beyond the banks of Jordan. But all in vain, the mes- 
senger comes back, and comes alone* This must have 

* Judges T. 28. 



LECTURE III. 327 

been to them the death of hope, and from that hour, 
even Martha's energy, and Mary's love, must have 
begun to fail them. Lazarus grows daily worse, the 
last sad scene comes hastening on, all remedies are 
cast despondingly aside, and he w^hom they had vainly 
thought the Saviour loved, is permitted to pass through 
every hour of human suffering, even to the darkest, and 
the last. 

We must not stop in this affecting narrative, to mark 
each lesson of spiritual instruction as it springs ; far 
better that you should seek it, and apply it for your- 
selves. Only remember, that neither the depth nor the 
length of an affliction is any evidence that the Lord 
has forgotten to be gracious, or that you are not the 
objects of his love. Were it so, then never would the 
tears of sorrow have flowed so freely in the house of 
Martha. Remember also, that a prayer unanswered 
by no means signifies a prayer unheard ; if so, then 
Jesus never saw the messenger from Bethany, or cared 
for the woful tidings which he brought. No, in all 
cases, the Lord's time, not mine ; the Lord's way, not 
mine ; the Lord's will, not mine ; must be the language 
of the believer's heart. Enough, if it be but " for the 
glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified 
thereby."* 

And now four days had passed away, since the silent 
train of mourners had conveyed the body of him they 
wept, to that place where ^' the wicked cease from 
troubUng, and where the weary are at rest ;"f and ac- 
cording to the custom of the Jews, the sorrowing sisters 
were within, surrounded by sympathizing friends, and 

* John xi. 4. t Job iii. 17. 



328 LECTURE III. 

fulfilling the days of their mourning. At length, but 
alas ! how much too late, they hear by the clamour of 
the approaching multitude, that Jesus, attended by his 
disciples, is drawing near the town ; Martha, who even 
in the extremity of her sorrow, is still the same ener^ 
getic being that she ever was, hastens forth to meet 
him, while Mary, how true to nature is the narrative 1 
" sat still in the house." 

As soon as Martha meets the Saviour, the single 
feehng with which, during those days of trial, her heart 
was full, finds ready utterance, " Lord, if thou hadst 
been here, my brother had not died ;" and then, as if to 
soften a declaration which seemed almost reproachingly 
to imply, Could friendship find no shorter road frorri 
Bethabara to Bethany? she immediately adds, <* But I 
know% that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, 
God will give it thee," It is a common feature to every 
child of Adam, in moments of disappointment or despon^ 
dency, to speak hastily or unadvisedly with the lips, 
and Martha did not, as we have seen, escape it; but 
then it is a feature equally uniform in every child of 
God, that the second thought corrects the first, and here 
also, Martha was not found wanting. Her faith, though 
still imperfect, rises immeasurably in degree between 
the utterance of these two sentences ; in the first, she 
appears to believe that all was lost ; in the second, she 
has already attained to the conviction that the prayer of 
Christ would be undeniable ; she wants but one step 
more, viz. that the will of Christ was as omnipotent as 
his prayer, and her belief would be perfected : and even 
this advancement was not long withheld. " Jesus saith 
unto her, Thy brother shall rise again ;" intending evi- 
dently to prepare her for the stupendous miraclife he was 



LECTURE in, 329 

about to perform. "Martha saith unto him, I know that 
he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 
Plainly inferring, but what comfort can this minister to 
me now ? 

How poor a thing is human faith, even at its best 
estate, let Martha telL She could believe the distant 
miracle, that all the thousands and tens of thousands of 
the inhabitants of the earth should rise, but she could 
not contentedly rest upon the present promise, and believe 
that the brother whom she loved, should be called back 
again out of his sepulchre at Bethany. How easy is it, 
comparatively, for our faith to giva full credence to 
those high promises of God, which require centuries to 
bring them to perfection, how difficult to receive unhesi- 
tatingly, and to rest upon implicitly, the promise of to- 
day. Yet this, which seems the simplest, is in truth the 
highest achievement of faith; to live contentedly, amidst 
our daily wants, and daily trials, and daily temptations, 
upon the present enjoyment of God's promises, in the full 
assurance, as each season of difficulty comes, that there 
will accompany it, grace, and love, and patience, equal 
to our need, and God's requirements. 

" Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the 
life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." Wonderful and blessed declaration ! 
Martha had before acknowledged her belief that at the 
prayer of Jesus, the Almighty would restore her brother; 
but how much more glorious a hope did these words 
convey, "lam the resurrection and the life," by my 
own inherent power, the resurrection of every created 
soul shall be effected ; what then have you to fear either 
for Lazarus or yourself? I tell you, he shall rise again, 

28* 



330 LECTURE III. 

and I can command the resurrection which I promise. 
Here was power more astonishing than the imagination 
could conceive, united to mercy more tender than the 
heart could venture to hope. 

How w^ell and how wisely does our Church appro- 
priate this striking declaration of our Saviour, when she 
places it at the opening of her burial service. When 
you are called to follow to the grave the remains of some 
beloved relative, or some dear friend, your mind filled 
with the thought of committing the departed to its kin- 
dred clay ; your recollection dwelling with painful in- 
tensity upon the last solemn scene, upon the perishing 
nature of all worldly relationships; every sight, and 
every sound, connected with this last sad ceremony, 
tending only to increase your grief, and sink you deeper 
in the dust ; you are met at the very entrance of the 
abodes of death, by this encouraging declaration, *^I am 
the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord !" The very 
first words which greet you here, are well calculated to 
banish despondency and to reanimate hope; they are 
worthy of the house of God, and the gate of heaven ; 
they speak no more of death and of the sepulchre, but 
of life and the resurrection : they call back your wan- 
dering affections from the poor helpless tenement before 
you, the mere wreck of what you once have loved, and 
carry them forward to the scene, where if he have died 
a child of God, he is now arrayed in light, partaking of 
all the unutterable happiness of the blessed. Nay, they 
do more, they carry you from the thoughts of death and 
its fearful ravages, to him who has robbed it of its sting, 
and the grave of its victory ; they transport you at once 
to the side of that Saviour who is " the resurrection and 
the life," who, when your own *^ heart and flesh shall fail 



LECTURE III. 331 

you, will be the strength of your heart, and your por- 
tion for ever."* *' Believest thou this ?' said our Lord 
to his sorrowing disciple ; " She saith unto him, Yea, 
Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, 
which should come into the world." Here was the per- 
fecting of her faith ; not Peter himself, in the hour when 
he received that great and blessed commendation, which 
marked his confession of faith as the rock on which the 
Saviour should build his imperishable Church, evinced a 
stronger or more accurate belief in Jesus of Nazareth, 
as the Messiah of God, than was manifested in that brief 
sentence. 

" And when she had so said, she went her way, and 
called Mary her sister secretly, saying, the Master is 
come, and calleth for thee." <* As soon as Mary heard 
that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. Now 
Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that 
place w^here Martha met him. The Jews then which 
were with her in the house, and comforted her, when 
they saw Mary that she rose up hastily and went out, 
followed her, saying. She goeth unto the grave, to weep 
there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, 
and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying, Lord, if 
thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." The 
very same sentiment, in the very same words, which 
but an hour before had flowed from the lips of Martha. 
How natural ! probably during those days of deep 
anxiety, when at the sick bed of their brother they had 
been momentarily expecting the arrival of their Lord, 
this sentence had a thousand times formed almost the 
whole of their communication, — * If he were but here, 

^ Psalm l35J?iii. ?6^ 



332 LECTURE III. 

Lazarus would not die.' How precisely, then, is it 
what we should have expected, that although thus 
meeting the Saviour separately, each sister should greet 
him with the self-same words. Still we must not per- 
mit the fact that the observation was a natural one, to 
disguise from us the sin of heart, which we fear these 
little words betrayed. They plainly show that these 
afflicted sisters both believed, that had they been per- 
mitted to order the course of events, the result would 
have been far happier ; " If thou hadst been here," if 
something had happened which has not happened, the 
event might have been less wretched. O how often do 
reflections similar to this, barb the arrow of affliction 
with a poignancy which nothing else could give. These 
are the thoughts that in our wretchedness make us 
doubly wretched, ' If we had taken such a course !^ ' If 
we had acted in some other and some wiser manner ;' 
' If we had consulted such a physician, how different 
would have been the issue !' There can be nothing 
more unwise, perhaps few things more unholy, than 
reasoning thus. In dwelling upon secondary causes, 
we overlook the first great Cause of all — the God of 
heaven and earth, who alone ordereth all things, and 
doeth all things well. Has he had no share in the de- 
cision ? Did he not direct our present disappointment ? 
or, was he not present when our friend was taken from 
us ? Is the departure of an immortal soul a matter of 
such trifling import, as to escape the cognizance, or be 
unworthy the appointment of him, without whom not a 
sparrow falleth? Or, have we not yet forgiven God 
for interfering with our happiness, in a manner which 
we think might have been prevented ? Refrain, brethren, 
we beseech you, from all such unholy reasonings^ which 



LECTURE III. 333 

are the fruitful parents of pain, and grief, and self-re- 
proach, and which never yet have taught those who 
entertain them, to " hear the rod, and him' who ap- 
pointeth it." Be satisfied that this is the only course of 
safety and of peace, to seek earnestly and faithfully the 
guidance of your Heavenly Father, to act according to 
the judgment which he has vouchsafed, and having 
done so, to leave the event with calmness and confi- 
dence in his hands, whose word is pledged to you that 
-^^ all things shall work together for good to them that 
love him." ^' Duties are ours, events are God's." 

Mary, having uttered the words upon which we have 
been commenting, does- not accompany them by such 
a declaration of faith as Martha did ; but this seems 
rather owing to the excess of her emotion, than to any 
defect in her belief; for no sooner did she reach the 
Saviour, than " she fell down at his feet." 

Again, how characteristic and how natural! She 
who had sat at his feet in the days of health, finds a 
refuge there in the hour of trouble. Martha can reason, 
Mary can only feel. And yet it would seem as if Jesus 
were more affected by this touching manifestation of 
Mary's tenderness, than by all the accuracy of her 
sister's creed. For the evangelist continues, "When 
Jesus, therefore, saw her weeping, and the Jews also 
weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, 
and was troubled, and said. Where have ye laid him ? 
They say unto him. Lord, come and see." Perhaps at 
that moment, speaking after the fashion of men, Jesus 
almost regretted that he had set their faith so hard a 
lesson, and felt half inclined to wish that he had not 
suffered the malady to run its fatal course. 

"Jesus wept." Yes, brethren, there was nothing 



334 LECTURE III. 

Strange or wonderful in this. The Saviour was a man 
of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; intinrjate with 
every sinless infirmity of our nature, our hunger, our 
thirst, our weariness, and our afflictions. He did not 
suppress his grief; for he well knew that to many of his 
mourning children, it would in times to come, be a 
most heart-encouraging reflection, while standing near 
the new-made grave, and unable to repress their tears, 
to know that Jesus H mself had shed tears of natural 
sorrow at the tomb of Lazarus. 

At length the sorrowing company arrive at the 
sepulchre. ^* It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it ;" 
or rather against it. " Jesus said, Take ye away the 
stone." What man can do, man must do, or God will 
never interfere to effect what man is unable to perform. 
Martha, who had long been silent, but who had accom- 
panied our Lord, a deeply interested spectator of all 
that had gone forward, could not longer restrain her- 
self, and her anxieties once more got the better of her 
faitk While they are advancing to obey the com- 
mandment of the Saviour, and to remove the stone, she 
addresses herself to Jesus, and, as if to deprecate the 
almost sacrilegious act for which she sees them pre- 
paring, exclaims, " Lord, by this time he stinketh, for 
he hath been dead four days." How often at the very 
crisis of our fate, when another hour of patience, 
another act of faith, and all would be well, does God 
permit us thus to stumble, as it were, at the end of the 
journey ! that the discovery of our weakness, when we 
least expect it, may teach us yet more of the plague of 
our own heart, and send us yet the nearer and the 
oftener to God for help. 

^' Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that if 



LECTURE III. 335 

thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of 
God?" How mild and gentle a reproof; he who knows 
our frame, remembers that w^e are but dust. Christ 
knew that with all the graces possessed by this beloved 
and amiable disciple, she w^as imperfect still, and that if 
there were a time or place when those graces would 
be more than usually sullied by the taint of mortality, 
it would be, while standing for that moment of deep 
and terrible suspense, at the mouth of her brother's 
sepulchre. But not in Martha's heart alone did our 
Lord behold the workings of infirmity at that trying 
hour; from the sceptical Sadducee, who believed in no 
resurrection, and who stood by, the contemptuous wit- 
ness of a miracle, which he resolved to discredit, even 
to the full assurance of hope, in the pious sisters them- 
selves, all was infirmity, and needed the pardon and 
forbearance of him who reads the heart. In the hours 
even of our greatest mercies and highest privileges, 
how much does the God of all our mercies, discover 
utterly unworthy of the blessings he is bestowing upon 
us. Yes, at the very instant that we are receiving the 
richest gifts from the providence of God, we are need- 
ing, and perhaps more than ever receiving, the par- 
doning mercies of his grace. How ought the reflection 
to humble us, even unto the dust, with the sense of our 
own unworthiness and sin, and to fill us with unbounded 
gratitude to him, who measures not his blessings by our 
deservings. 

" Then took they away the stone from the place 
where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, 
and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. 
And I knew that thou hcarest me always ; but because 
of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may 



336 LECTURE III. 

believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had 
spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come 
forth ! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand 
and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound 
about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose 
him, and let him go." How strikingly simple, how 
truly subhme, is every portion of this impressive narra- 
tive. What absence of all effort, of all display — Christ 
is "not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all 
live unto him,"*' and most convincingly did the manner 
in which he performed the miracle, illustrate the asser* 
tiom It was no greater effort to him to pour the tide 
of life anew into the stagnant veins, to reanimate the 
mouldering frame, to call that tainted and corrupted 
corpse back from the sepulchre, than in the garden 
of Gethsemane to awaken the sleeping Peter. Most 
astonishing evidence to the power of the only-begotten 
Son of God ! Most convincing proof of the truth of 
his own remarkable declaration, that "Even as the 
Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son 
to have life in himself"f A single word from him is 
sufficient to impart spiritual hfe to a soul in the shadow 
of death, natural Hfe to a body amid the corruption of 
the grave, and eternal life to all the generations of 
Adam upon the resurrection day. 

But why are we so struck with a single instance of 
our Lord's omnipotence? Surely it argues almost a 
want of faith, that we should think so much, and dwell so 
long, upon the fact of his calling one poor sinner back 
to life again. Can we not imagine that he would almost 
my to us, as he once said to the Jews, " I have done 

* Matthew xxii. 32. t John v. 26. 



LECTURE III. 337 

one work, and ye all marvel,"* " Marvel not at this, for 
the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves 
shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come 
forth."t 

Turn, then, from the thoughts of the resurrection of 
Lazarus, to that far more deeply interesting one which 
awaits yourselves. What a moment will that be, 
brethren, when " the voice of the trumpet sounding 
long, and waxing louder and louder,"J and yet the voice 
of the Son of man heard far above that fearful sound, 
until the mountains shall be moved by it, and the rocks 
rent, and the lights of heaven darkened, and the powers of 
heaven shaken, and all those ancient sepulchres in which 
the silence of death has reigned for centuries, shall re- 
echo to the cry, and in obedience to its summons, be 
repeopled with their living multitudes, and cast forth 
the countless crowds of their inhabitants* The narrow 
house of the grave, in which our bodies shall have so 
long reposed, unable to retain us when called by the 
voice of the Son of man : the very chains of death no 
longer sufficiently powerful to bind us down ; limb by 
Hmb, sense by sense returning, until breath, and sight, 
and motion, and consciousness, and personal identity, 
are all thoroughly restored, and we know and feel our- 
selves to be the same poor, helpless creatures that we 
were, when we were laid among our kindred clay. 
What will be to every child of God the feelings of that 
hour, the unspeakable blessing of recollecting at the first 
moment of returning life, that he is not alone, that he 
was made by sovereign grace, a member of that great 
and happy family w^ho cannot perish, because all are 

♦ John vii. 2l. t John v. 28, 29. t Exodus xix. 19. 

29 



338 LECTURE III. 

united, closely, everlastingly united, to their imperishable 
Head, to him whose voice they hear, and to whom all 
the judgment of that great day has been committed. 
" Of them whom thou gavest me have I lost none,"* 
was one of the latest sentences delivered by our Lord 
in the days of his flesh ; and if the words of the prophet 
be true, " Behold, I and the children which God hath 
given me,"-f will still be the language of his lips upon 
the morning of the resurrection. Who, then, can anti- 
cipate the blessedness of the recollection at that hour, 
that he who is come to be our Judge, even God the Son, 
w^as " not ashamed"! while we were toiling and travail- 
ing upon earth, " to call us brethren ;" that we had been 
permitted even then, to call the Most High God, " Abba, 
Father ;" that God the Holy Ghost had even there, 
borne witness with our spirits that we w^ere the children 
of God, and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and 
joint heirs with Christ, of " an inheritance incorruptible, 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven 
for us."§ 

O, it is well often to endeavour to realize this solemn 
scene ; it is a powerful corrective to the folHes and plea- 
sures, the ambition and pageantry of earth. Brethren* 
you who are still in the world, and of the world, suffer 
for a few brief moments the word of exhortation. What 
will all that your hearts are at present filled with, all 
that your hands are engaged in, all that your days and 
nights are now employed in, avail you, when the trum- 
pet of the archangel, the voice of God, shall burst the 
sepulchre ? You who are living to the world more than 
unto God, I solemnly charge you by the certainty of 

* John xviii. 9. t Isaiah viii. 18. t Hebrews ii. 11. $ 1 Peter i. 4. 



LECTURE III. 339 

that great event of which we speak, by the assurance 
that we shall meet before the tribunal of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, that you this day carry away with 
you an abiding impression of death and judgment, and 
heaven and hell ; that in your most thoughtless hours, 
amidst the giddy throng of those who, like yourselves, 
are living unto pleasure, and are therefore dead while 
they live, you make of yourselves this solemn inquiry, 
" What shall it profit me, if I gain the whole world, and 
lose my own soul ? or, what shall I give in exchange 
for my soul ?"* And may the answer be, by God's 
grace, of such a nature, that you may resolve now, 
while time, and fife, and sense remain, to be earnest in 
the great work of the salvation of your soul ; now to 
cast yourself with Mary at the feet of your Redeemer, 
now to strive and pray that you may be with that 
happy family of whom we have this day spoken, among 
the number of those whom " Jesus loveth ;" knowing for 
your consolation, that whom " he loveth," he " loveth 
unto the end,"t and that '' neither death, nor Ufe, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pre- 
sent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love 
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. "J 

* Matthew xvi. 26. t John xMi. 1. t Romans viii. 38, 39. 



34Q 



LECTURE IV. 



St. Matthew xix. 16. 



" And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what 
good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life ?" 

The incident in our Lord's history which we intend 
ta consider at present as following next in order of time, 
among the striking events in the Saviour's life, to that 
which was brought before you in the last discourse, will 
not indeed possess the same intense or breathless inte- 
rest, but we may hope, will, by God's grace, be quite as 
instructive, quite as improving. The subject of it is 
our Lord's interview with the rich young man, related 
with Uttle variation by the first three evangelists ; we 
shall, therefore, take St. Matthew's narrative* as our 
ground-work, filling in the additional details of the story 
from St. Markf and St. Luke.J " And when Jesus was 
gone forth into the way, behold, a certain ruler came 
running, and kneeling to him, and asked him, saying. 
Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may 
have eternal life ?" 

The character of the applicant is almost as clearly 
developed by this opening passage of the narrative, as 

* Matthew xix. 16—22. t Mark x. 17—22. | Luke xviii. 10— 2a 



LECTURE IV. 341 

his station in life. He was evidently an amiable, 
warm-hearted, affectionate young man. It was not 
common at that period for any of his order to seek the 
Saviour of the world. True it is, that, as we have 
seen, Jesus was followed, and followed readily, by 
many, but they were usually the poor, and the desti- 
tute, and the afflicted. Indeed, we have hitherto only 
heard of one ruler who ever sought him for the pur- 
poses of spiritual instruction; and he crept to his lonely 
dwelling under the shadow of the night, glad to escape 
the observation and the sneers of those who would 
have, no doubt, unkindly criticised a daylight visit. 
There was no such apprehension in the mind of him 
of whom w^e speak, Jesus was "in the way," in the 
high road, surrounded by his disciples, and still at- 
tended, probably, by many of " the great multitudes," 
who, as we are told in the second verse of the chapter, 
had followed him out of Galilee, and yet this young 
ruler came " running," and boldly and openly acknow- 
ledged his respect for our Lord by kneehng at his feet, 
while he made the solemn and important inquiry. The 
very terms also, in which his question was expressed, 
are characteristic of the same frankness and good feel- 
ing. Many other applicants had called our Saviour, 
" Master," but I know of no other instance in his his- 
tory, in which he was addressed as " Good Master ;" 
while the inquiry, " What good thing shall I do, that 
I may have eternal life?" at once pronounces the 
speaker to have been in earnest in the search, and 
although doubtless, very defective in his views of divine 
truth, and probably too well satisfied with his own 
imaginary attainments in religion, yet apparently very 
desirous to learn, and not unwilHng to make some 

29* 



342 LECTURE IV. 

sacrifices, and to expect some difficulties in the attain- 
ment. 

Our Lord, before he returns any reply to the deeply 
interesting inquiry, comments for a moment upon the 
singularly unusual epithet, which the young man had 
applied to him. " He said unto him, Why callest 
thou me good? There is none good but one, that is 
God." 

It is remarkable that Socinians should have selected 
so slender a foundation upon which to build so largely 
as they have done, when they attempted to erect upon 
this simple declaration, the ponderous superstructure of 
a denial of the Divinity of our Lord. Here, say they, 
is a distinct disavowal, from the lips of Christ himself 
of all right to the title of essential, independent, infinite 
goodness, which belongs to God alone ; therefore does 
he equally disavow all claim to that identity, or co- 
equality with Deity, with which his followers would 
invest him. It is, however, evident, that the answer of 
our Lord implies no such disavowal. The young man 
came, earnestly seeking truth, and the first words of 
Christ convey a very important portion of divine truth 
to his mind, '^ None is good," essentially and perfectly, 
but God, why, therefore, callest thou me good, since 
thou hast never yet been taught, like^the holy Peter and 
the spiritually enlightened Martha, that truth, which 
flesh and blood cannot have revealed to thee, that I 
am indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God, co- 
equal in dignity, and power, and goodness, with God 
himself; yea, that I am "God of God, light of lights 
very God of very God." Had the young ruler pro- 
fessed a belief in this vital truth of the religion of Jesus, 
most certainly our Lord would never have called in 



LECTURE IV. 343 

question the propriety of his epithet, but would have 
confirmed it, as he did the declaration of Pilate by the 
strongest possible affirmative and acquiescence. How- 
ever, for the moment, let this pass; the epithet was 
applied in kindness, though in ignorance, and the ex- 
posure of that ignorance is sufficient. Here, then, is 
the answer to the question ; " If thou wilt enter into 
life, keep the commandments." " The young man 
saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou knowest the 
commandments. Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt 
not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not 
bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother; 
and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself* 

It seems at first sight remarkable that this reply of 
our Lord should differ so widely and so importantly, 
from other answers given both by himself and by his 
disciples, to similar inquiries. When, for instance, the 
Jews asked our Lord '' What shall we do that we 
might work the works of God,"* Christ at once and 
unhesitatingly proposed the Gospel to them ;f " This is 
the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath 
sent," So, again, his disciples, in answer to similar 
inquiries, replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved." Why, then, was our Lord's 
reply so remarkably different upon the present occa- 
sion? Did he indeed intend that all around him 
should suppose that obedience to the commands of God, 
such a poor, miserable, imperfect obedience, as even 
the best of men could offer, would open the doors of the 
kingdom of heaven? If so, then indeed "is our preach- 
ing vain, and your faith is vain also ;"J nay, then was 
the blood of the only-begotten son of God wasted upon 



t 



' John vi. S8. t John vi. 2a X \ Corinthians xv. 11 



344 LECTURE IV. 

Calvary, and we must reverse the apostle's deckration, 
and say, We are not under grace but under the law. 

Doubtless there is some other and some better expla- 
nation of our Lord's reply, and more in accordance 
with the whole tenor of his precepts and his doctrines, 
than this. Probably we shall discover it in the state of 
mind of him whom he addressed ; he was a man evi- 
dently living under the covenant of works, and our 
Lord simply meets him upon his own ground. He in- 
quires what particular commandment he must obey, 
that he might enter into life. He saith unto him. 
Which ? Christ repeats almost the whole of the second 
table. The young man, not at all aware of the spi- 
rituality of the law of God, and therefore not abashed 
at the extent of its requirements, answered and saith 
unto him, " All these things have I kept from my youth 
up, what lack I yet ?" This is often supposed to be the 
language of presumption and self-conceit; it rather ap- 
pears to be the language of ignorance and honest inquiry. 
There is little doubt that, viewing the decalogue as the 
generality of the Jews of our Saviour's time were in the 
habit of doing, this young man, carefully educated in 
all outward observances, and very little acquainted 
with the state of his own heart, might really have 
believed that what he said was the language of truth, 
and that seeing only as man sees, and judging as man 
judges, he had kept all these things from his youth 
up. He was now, therefore, precisely in that state best 
adapted to the test which our Lord was about to apply. 
His attention had been distinctly called to the require- 
ments of that covenant of works within which he stood, 
and to the power of his own heart for fulfilling its de- 
mands ; and knowing, even to the degree to which he , 
knew it, the exceeding breadth of the law of God, 



LECTURE IV. 345 

and the extreme weakness of the heart of man, he 
could yet confidently make the inquiry, " What lack I 
yet ?" * I do not find these things difficult, I have 
never found them so ; tell me, then, what remains for 
me to do ; show me something, if there be any thing so 
difficult, that I cannot achieve: I long ardently for 
heaven; I burn with the desire of meriting its joys; no 
command so arduous that I shall not attempt it, few so 
impracticable that I shall not fulfil them.' 

" Now, when Jesus heard these things, he beholding 
him, loved him." He loved his zeal, his ardour, his 
early obedience, his present anxiety and hopefulness; 
and said unto him, "Yet lackest thou one thing: if thou 
wilt be perfect, go thy way, sell that thou hast, and give 
to the poor, and thou shalt ha\^ treasure in heaven, and 
come, take up the cross, and follow me." 

What a test was this for his new-born desires after 
heaven; what a touchstone for his sincerity! What 
a trial of the power of the law, to convict of disobe- 
dience all who profess to keep it ! But was it nothing 
more, was there no gospel hidden in this brief com- 
mand? Shall we who hear these words, presume to 
say that Christ never preached faith to this inquirer? 
Why, what was implied by inviting him to take up the 
cross and to follow Jesus ? It was the very language 
in which he called almost every one of the disciples ; 
they doubted not the meaning ; they knew that in fol- 
lowing Christ they were to acknowledge him as the 
Messiah of God ; and they knew that in taking up the 
cross, they assumed no imaginary burden, but were to 
bear the opposition and contempt, the persecution and 
malevolence, of their fellow-men, until that cross on 
earth should be exchanged for the crown in heaven. 



346 LECTURE IV. 

Doubtless the young ruler also knew it well, he could 
not but know, the claim which so many had already 
acknowledged, and which all might see, in the prophe- 
cies fulfilled, and in the miracles wrought by him who 
thus invited him. But then he knew too well, the pains 
and penalties to which such an . acknowledgment, and 
such an association with the Saviour, would expose 
him ; and when he thought of coming years of penury, 
and then looked back upon the comforts and the luxuries 
which had become absolutely necessary to his happiness; 
and when he viewed the poor and poverty-stricken com- 
pany who surrounded the Saviour, and then asked him- 
self, — And am I to mingle in this train ? to follow this 
despised Nazarene ? to sit down, day by day, with that 
Galilean pubUcan? to ^sociate with those, no doubt 
excellent men, but still unpolished and uncivilized fisher- 
men, and part with all, sell every thing, give up* every 
friend, abandon every acquaintance, and cast in my lot, 
not for a day, or for a year, but for ever, with persons 
who never knew the enjoyment, and therefore never felt 
the loss, of the refinements amidst which I five ? O, it 
is too much ; heaven is too dearly purchased at such a 
costly sacrifice. 

Who can be surprised at the result ? It must infallibly 
be the same in every case, where man, poor, frail, sin- 
ning and sinful man, attempts to stand upon the covenant 
of works, and to enter heaven by his obedience. It may 
endure for a time, and to the outward view^ which weighs 
no motives, and measures only by the eye, it may appear 
fair and plausible, but the day must come when some dif- 
cult test will be proposed, some trial of our patience or of 
our love, from which unassisted nature shrinks back, quite 
terrified and bafliied, and the covenant of works is, even to' 



i LECTURE IV. 347 

the apprehension of the least observant, for ever broken 
and destroyed. So was it in the case before us; all this 
young man's hope of heaven was built upon his implicit 
obedience : a single test decides its utter worthlessness. 
When he inquired, "What lack I yet?" he probably 
thought that the answer could contain no demand with 
which he could not most fully and most cheerfully com- 
ply. So different was the event, so thoroughly and en- 
tirely was he discomfited, that he appears not to have 
hazarded another word, and we know not that he ever 
courted another interview. All that inspiration has re- 
corded, which certainly does not forbid our hope that 
his sorrow was one day turned into joy, though it says 
nothing to encourage it, is, that " When the young man 
heard that saying, he went away sorrow^ful, for he had 
great possessions." 

My brethren, if we were to search from end to end 
the matchless history in which we are engaged, I know 
not that we could select an incident which appears more 
peculiarly adapted to a large proportion of this congre- 
gation, than the story you have just heard. How many 
are there at this moment within these walls, who answer, 
in many respects at least, to the character of him of whom 
we have been speaking. Young, rich, noble, well-in- 
formed, virtuous, amiable, affectionate, and in addition 
to all these, coming voluntarily, coming readily, with a 
real and earnest desire to know what they " shall do to 
inherit eternal life." It is a comfort to every Christian 
minister to find that even where there were no spiritual 
attainments to attract the afiection of the Saviour, our 
Divine Master " loved" inquirers such as these. He 
did not say, as many a human teacher would have said, 
in such a case as that before us ; There is no hope of 



348 LECTURE IV. 

such a man, so much ignorance, so much inconsistency, 
Hstcning to me to-day and Hving to the world to-morrow : 
No! a compassionate Saviour gladly seized the opportu- 
nity that was offered him, and while he felt kindly towards 
him, he spoke kindly to him, and seemed almost as sor- 
rowful when that young ruler turned aside, uninfluenced 
andtunconverted, as when weeping over the devoted city 
of Jerusalem. But then, brethren, while we thus mark 
the feeling with which our divine Master contemplated 
such a case as this, we must not overlook the manner 
of his treatment. It was, as we have seen, a very 
striking and peculiar instance, and yet our Lord did 
not modify his message to meet the emergency of it ; 
there was no change, no diminution of requirement, 
because the applicant was rich, and a ruler. Our Lord 
addressed the self-same command to him, that he had 
to the poorest fisherman, or the most despised and de- 
graded publican, " Leave that thou hast, and follow^ me." 
Whether it were a thousand acres, or one poor fishing 
net, makes no distinction in the sight of God. This 
was the command, no doubt peculiar to that time, but 
still, as long as it was required at all, it was required of 
each, and every one. The great truth, then, which we 
would deduce, is this ; that the demands of the gospel 
never vary with the rank, or station, or age, or feelings 
of the person to whom they were addressed* As much 
is required of the highest, as of the lowest ; the same is 
required of the richest, as of the poorest. ^^4 

We say, then, to you who are among the class of 
inquirers to whom we have already alluded, that God 
speaks as plainly, that Christ addresses himself as autho* 
ritatively to you, as he does to the poorest and the most 
destitute who throng our aisles. Have you, for instance, 



LECTURE IV. 349 

come hither this day, really making the inquiry in ear- 
nest, " What lack I yet V^ Then must you learn, what- 
ever be your age, or rank^ or station in society, that we 
have but one answer, never modified, never changed. 
The Lord Jesus Christ says to every individual among 
you, " Come, follow me." I am still going through the 
world, accompanied by a little flock, whose rule oi life, 
whose motives, pleasures, and desires, differ as* widely 
from the great mass of mankind, and are perhaps as 
foreign to your taste, as the habits of those Galilean 
fishermen were to that young ruler. Nevertheless, if 
you will follow mC) you must be one of this little com- 
pany; yes, however it may oppose all your preconceived 
opinions, you must cast in your lot with the people of 
God : you must commence the life of faith ; you must 
leave off all dependence upon your own merits, your 
own righteousness, and trust simply and implicitly to 
what I have already done, by pouring forth my blood 
upon the cross, to reconcile you to God, and you must 
live a life of holy obedience and preparedness for my 
kingdom and glory^ the world being crucified unto you, 
and you unto the world. And this you cannot do in any 
age, or in any society^ without diflfering widely from the 
multitude; without taking the word of God simply and 
absolutely for the daily guide and the only guide of your 
actions, and practically opposing, by your conduct, the 
opinions of all around you, when they run (Counter to 
that revealed will. 

How many are there evert among ourselves, of whom 
we are compelled to say, when sUch a test as this is 
produced, " Yet lackest thou one thing ;" the heart has 
never yet been truly thus given to God in Christ Jesus, 
This is the one thing which carries a thousand others in 

30 



350 LECTURE IV. 

its train. Because you have not given your heart to 
God, therefore, there cannot be this real, vital change of 
life ; therefore, there cannot be this conscientious renun- 
ciation of the sinful pleasures and folUes of the world; 
therefore, there is not this hearty desire, by all holy 
obedience and separation from the world, to follow 
Christ. You may take a certain degree of pleasure in 
hearing his word, or attending his ordinances, and with 
respect to them, you may be able to say, All these things 
have I kept from my youth up ; but then you consider 
this perfectly compatible with just as large and as un- 
necessary an intercourse with the world, as the most 
devoted of its followers. And you satisfy your con- 
sciences by saying, that, as you do not see these things 
in the same light as others do, who condemn, or dis- 
allow them, to you, they are immaterial. Doubtless the 
young ruler, as he walked away in sorrow from our 
Lord, contented himself with precisely the same plea, 
and reconciled himself to the course he was taking, by 
lamenting that so good a man as Jesus should so much 
have undervalued all the good works, of which he told 
him, and should know so little of the world as to require 
a sacrifice, so unreasonable and so preposterous; and 
thus resolved, like many among ourselves, to continue 
his own course, only deeply regretting that it was quite 
out of his power to follow the Saviour's recommenda* 
tion. Brethren, what can we say which shall influence 
persons such as you are? of all classes, the most difficult, 
the most unassailable. Shall we urge you to weigh 
these pleas in the balance of the sanctuary, that you 
may learn their utter worthlessness ? Shall we entreat 
you to look at these things by the light of eternity, that 
you may see them in their true colours ? Or, shall we 



LECTURE IV. 351 

adopt a different method, and, discarding the terrors of 
the Lord, only assure you that even at the very moment 
when you are thus virtually forsaking Christ, and reject- 
ing your own salvation, Jesus loves you, and is as anxious 
as he ever was that you should decide differently, and 
that he even now beseeches you by us, '' Be ye recon- 
ciled to God." But, then, Christ loved this ruler also, 
and yet he suffered him to depart in sorrow from his 
presence, rather than diminish one iota of his demand 
upon him, although it was to be thrown into the scale 
against the salvation of a soul. So is it with you to 
whom we are speaking ; we do not scruple to say that 
the Lord Jesus loves you now, because he sees much 
that when directed by new motives, and tending to new 
results, when flowing from the love of God, and tending 
to the glory of God, will become truly and positively 
lovely: but then neither miUstwe hesitate to declare that 
unless his promises be accepted, his commands obeyed, 
his requirements fulfilled, unless you close with the offers 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive him, and by his 
grace become one with him and he with you, this love 
can only be succeeded in his mind by those feelings of 
regret with which a merciful judge pronounces the sen- 
tence that consigns the delinquent to utter and irremedi- 
able destruction. 

Brethren, we say this, not in anger but in sorrow, that 
the most painful feature of our ministry among you — so 
painful that it almost tempts us at times to abandon it in 
despair — is the knowledge that you will, some at least 
among you, hear the plainest and most appalling truths 
of the gospel, the earnest, urgent calls to follow Christ, 
the command to come out and be separate from a world 
lying in wickedness, and after all, actually do not reach 



352 LECTURE IV. 

^ven that point at which the ruler of whom w^e sj^eak, fell 
short of heaven ! You do not obey the command, and 
you do not go away sorrowful that you can disobey it ; 
you return in many cases, only to plunge the deeper into 
sins and follies, which your hearts condemn. We can 
only say, God be merciful to us sinners ! 

'^ When Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he 
looked round about, and said unto his disciples, How 
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom 
of God," This may be considered as the moral of the 
story, the extreme increase of difficulty which worldly 
possessions cast in the way, to the attainment of the 
heavenly glory. You may attempt to modify the de- 
claration by adopting the addition which we meet with 
in St. Mark^ " How hard is it for them that trust in riches, 
to enter into the kingdom of God ;"* but then, brethren, 
w^here are they to be found who really possess wealth, 
and never trust in it ; who knowing that they can say to 
their souls, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 
many years,"f can still say, '^Give us this day our daily 
bread," with a heart as simply dependent upon their 
Father which is in heaven, for the food which that day's 
necessities require, as the man who is literally compelled 
to look upward for his daily sustenance, and to gain his 
daily bread, by God's blessing upon his daily labour ? 
No ! experience tells us, that except in some few, rare, 
and blessed instances, it cannot be ; that the man who 
possesses an abundance, will find the difficulty of a 
simple faith immeasurably increased. He has some- 
thing to look to besides God; and almost imperceptibly, 
that secondary source of comfort and consolation will 

* Mark x. 24. t Luke xii. 19. 



LECTURE IV. 353 

encroach upon the attention, and love, and devotedness, 
and dependence, which belong to God alone, and in his 
mind will occupy the place of Deity. Who is there 
that knows his own heart, who will for a moment doubt 
it ? Is there an individual present, blessed even with a 
competency of this world's goods, who does not feel that 
there are times when they greatly clog his footsteps on 
the heavenward road ; many customs which he would 
not imitate, many habits which he would not adopt, 
many pleasures which wean the soul from God, and of 
which he wotild not be partaker but for the allurements 
by which he is surrounded. May we not ask almost 
every individual among you, are you not conscious that 
you should at this hour have been much nearer to the 
kingdom of God, if yours had been a harder and more 
difficult path through life than your worldly circum- 
stances have made it ? But, perhaps, it is vain to seek 
the truth of this from him who has never known but one 
station in society; only ask the man, then, who has had 
a personal experience of the effect of both adversity 
and prosperity, of poverty and wealth, which state he 
felt to be the most conducive to the spiritual interests of 
his soul? in which he sought God the most earnestly, in 
which he walked with him the more closely, in which 
his communion with God was the most heartfelt, hum- 
ble, and sincere ? We do not hesitate to assert that he 
will say at once, " My days of poverty ;" when I was 
the possessor of, it may be, but a single room, when all 
that I had was the produce of my labour during the 
day that w^as passing over me, there was then no cloud 
between me and my God, nothing that hindered the 
ascent oT my prayers to him, or the descent of his spi- 
ritual mercies upon me : if I was not a happier, I was 

30* 



354 LECTURE IV. 

certainly a holier man, than now, when surrounded by 
every comfort and every luxury which heart can desire. 
And, therefore, our Lord truly added, adopting a pro- 
verbial expression of the East, " It is easier for a camel 
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
to enter into the kingdom of God." When his disciples 
heard it they were exceedingly amazed, saying, not 
" How then shall this rich young ruler hope for salva- 
tion 1^^ but, '*■ Who then can be saved ?' Brethren, it is 
important to mark this inquiry of the apostles, because 
it throws much light upon the meaning of our Lord. 
Riches are comparative, and, probably^ almost every 
one among you, when he reads the story, determines 
that the amount of wealth which constituted a rich man 
in our Lord's acceptation of the' term, was an abundan<^e, 
no doubt common in Eastern countries, but such as falls 
to the lot only of the more privileged classes in our 
less genial clime, or,, at any rate, was most unques- 
tionably something more than he possesses. The very 
question of the disciples refutes this prevalent opinion ; 
they were poor themselves, and like all men in their 
station, their idea of what should constitute wealth 
would be but moderate, and yet they ask, " Who then 
can be saved?*' evidently understanding our Lord to 
speak not of the overgrown possessors of untold thou- 
sands, but of the great majority of mankind ; or their 
inquiry would have been particularly pointless and un- 
meaning. Neither does our Lord utter one word which 
is calculated to diminish the difficulty, or to correct their 
misappprehension ; He simply replies,. "With men this 
is impossible," " but not with God," "for with God all 
things are possible." 

Be assured then, brethren, that the moral speaks 



LECTURE IV. 355 

almost to every individual amongst us ; few, very few 
at least in the middle classes of society, who can escape 
its point. If you enjoy a competency, if you are bless- 
ed with a large and liberal allowance of the good things 
of this world, you have enough to clog your wheels, to 
narrow the way, and to straiten the gate to everlast- 
ing life. Learn then, however men may speak of it, 
that the eternal salvation of a soul, although entirely the 
work of free and sovereign grace is to every individual, 
and more especially to those surrounded by the luxuries 
of life, a matter of the extremest difficulty, and requir- 
ing the most earnest, persevering, intense application of 
all the powers of the mind, and all the efforts of the will. 
Every declaration, even every single expression in the 
word of God, is calculated to convey this solemn truth ; 
an apostle declares, that even the righteous shall scarcely 
be saved ; our Lord himself does not merely say, 
" Strive to enter in at the strait gate," as our transla- 
tion renders it, but " agonize"^ to enter in. And can you 
hope that heartless efforts, cold prayers, listless en- 
deavours, divided affections,, will come up to the re- 
quirements which such words and such declarations 
convey ; you feel that they cannot, you acknowledge at 
the very time that you are guilty of such feebleness of 
effort, such indecision of will, such vacillation of pur- 
pose, that these can never be the marks of men who are 
really born again of the Spirit, and renewed after the 
image of him that created them, or walking in that path 
of which your Lord has said^ " Strait is the gate, and 
narrow is the way that leadeth unto eternal life,, and few 
there be that find it.'^ 

Suffer me, however, to leave this to your own con-^ 
sideration and prayer, adding only a single sentence :. 



356 LECTURE IV. 

Blessed be God, for Jesus Christ, none ever sought that 
strait and narrow way in vain ; " With man it is im- 
posssible, but not with God ;" he has made that way so 
plain, that " the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not 
err therein ;"* but, then, it is the wayfaring man w^ho is 
contented to be accounted a fool for Christ's sake, and 
who will not take one step but at his bidding, or venture 
to go one yard out of that path in which he can discern 
the print of the Saviour's feet, for all the wealth and 
splendour of the world. Be resolved by God's grace, 
ye rich .and noble, to become such wayfaring men as 
these, and the gate of heaven is as widely open to you, 
as to the poorest follower of the Lord, and you shall sit 
down with many a Dives, as well as many a Lazarus, 
in the kingdom of our Father. * 

* Isaiah xxxv. 8.. 






357 



L ECTURE V. 

Luke xix. 9. 

" And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, 
forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham." 

There are few things more affecting, even to the 
natural heart, than to listen to the prognostication of 
evils about to befall those we love, and yet over which 
we have no control : to hear them speak of coming 
woes which we cannot avert, of threatening adversities 
which we possess no means of alleviating, of sorrows 
which we must not share. At the period of the history 
at which we are now arrived, this trial was preparing 
for the discipbs of our Lord. Twice before had he 
darkly and distantly alluded to the awful scene which 
awaited him in Jerusalem, but as the time drew nigh, it 
might indeed be said, " Lo, now speakest thou plainly, 
and speakest no proverb." " Jesus going up to Jeru- 
salem," says St. Matthew, " took the twelve disciples 
apart in the way, and said unto them. Behold we go up 
to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto 
the Chief Priests and unto the Scribes, and they shall 
condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the 
Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him, 
and the third day he shall rise again."* 

* Matthew xx. 17. 



358 LECTURE V. 

It is not easier to imagine plainer facts conveyed in 
more simple language. We should have thought that 
to have misunderstood such w^arnings would have been 
difficult ; but not to have been deeply moved and affected 
by them, impossible. St. Matthew and St. Mark are 
silent upon this point, but St. Luke adds, immediately 
after the observation of our Lord which I have just read 
to you, " And they understood none of these things ; and 
this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the 
things which were spoken."* Perhaps this was, in 
mercy, permitted by God, that while enough might be 
understood, to render them more than ever anxious 
to hang upon every word which proceeded from the 
Saviour's lips, and enough to satisfy them in after days, 
that all was known, distinctly and perfectly, to him who 
gave himself a willing sacrifice ; the rest might be for 
the present hidden from their view, lest, as the apostle ex- 
presses it, " they should be swallowed up with overmuch 
sorrow,"t and in tjie dreary apprehension of the future, 
lose every present joy and present blessing. How many 
are the instances in passing through life, in which, if we 
knew that the affection lavished upon us was manifest- 
ing itself for the last time, that the counsel offered us 
could be repeated no more, the corroding future would 
destroy the present, and rendarit at once wretched and 
unprofitable. 

This " blindness to the future, kindly given," was evi- 
dently, at least in part, bestowed on the present occa- 
sion ; had it not been, it were impossible that this most 
solemn, most awful prediction of thickly coming trials 
and sufferings, yea even of death itself, should only have 

^ * Luke xviii. 34. f 2 Cor. ii. 7 



LECTURE V. 359 

formed the prelude to one of the most ambitious requests 
ever proffered to the Saviour, during his earthly sojourn. 
It would appear from the language both of St. Matthew 
and St. Mark, that those words of awful and terrible 
prediction had scarcely passed his lips, when the nnother 
of James and John drew near with her sons, worship- 
ping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. 

Before we consider her petition, let us recollect for a 
moment, what the scriptures reveal concerning her who 
proffered it ; for we shall have need of all our charity. 
It is well, when we are about to hear that which may 
lower the character of others, to endeavour for our own 
sakes to call to mind what we are able of the brighter 
and better portions of their conduct, and thus to neu- 
tralize the poison which is too often secreted even in the 
renewed heart, and manifests itself in the bitterness and 
unkindness with which a single fault will be visited, 
although it be preceded and followed by a thousand 
virtues. 

The person, then, of whom we speak, was Salome, 
one of those truly pious and devoted women, who at- 
tended, through weal and wo, upon the footsteps of our 
Lord ; followed him to the judgment-seat and to the 
cross, and, unterrified by the horrors of that dreadful 
scene, remained when others had forsaken him ; felt the 
fearful shaking of the earthquake, witnessed the super- 
natural darkness, heard his last triumphant cry, and at 
length, when all was finished, accompanied his body to 
the sepulchre, and only retired from the heart-rending 
scene to prepare the spices for the embalming of him, 
whom she so devotedly loved when living, and so fear- 
lessly honoured when dead. 



360 LECTURE V. 

Salome then came, evidently at her son's request,* to 
Jesus, " desiring a certain thing of him. And he said 
unto her, What wilt thou?" We are often told, on 
other occasions, that " Jesus knew their thoughts," and 
doubtless he did so here ; and yet he would have those 
thoughts expressed before he noticed the petition they 
were engaged upon. What he did that day on the road 
to Jerusalem, he does at the present moment on the 
throne of his glory. He knows the most secret desire 
that is at this moment bursting into life in every heart 
here present, bi/t this will not insure the fulfilment of 
that desire, however praiseworthy. He still says, " What 
wilt thou ?" Let the thought ascend in aspiration, let 
the desire find utterance in ptayer, " Call upon me in 
the day of trouble, and I will dehver thee, and thou shalt 
glorify me."t " She saith unto him. Grant that these 
my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand and the 
other on thy left, in thy kingdom." 

Ambitious this request most certainly was> and as 
such) must unequivocally and decidedly be condemned ; 
and yet, it seemed to imply a faith which it is difficult 
not to honour. Our Lord had just spoken of betrayals, 
and mockings, and scourgings, and death, but he had 
also said, that he should '' rise again"J — and can we find 
nothing to applaud in a faith that at such an hour could 
look through the dark and lowering storm, to the coming 
sunshine ; that could, like the penitent malefactor, think 
more of the crown than of the cross ; and while even 
the disciples themselves were dreading the passage of 
their Master through the valley of the shadow of death, 
could thus look across that gloomy cavern, and fix a 

* Mark X. 35. AVhere the request is attributed to the children themselves. 
t Psalm 1. 15. I Luke xviii. 33. 



LECTURE^ V. 361 



firm and settled hope upon the bright land which lay 
beyond it ? I know not where the commentators have 
found a proof of their so readily made assertion, that 
the spiritually minded brothers, and that devoted woman, 
were looking only to a temporal kingdom, and to thrones 
and sceptres. This seems to be almost a gratuitous 
assumption. The request was faulty because it was 
ambitious ; and this is enough ; but it would require 
stronger evidence than I can discern to make me believe 
that this holy family were all acting in direct opposi- 
tion to the feeUngs of their whole lives, and were think- 
ing only of worldly emoluments, and perishing honours, 
when they preferred the request before us. 

" Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye 
ask." A reproof indeed ; but like every reproof of our 
divine Master to those he loves, a reproof most mild 
and gentle, and tempered immediately afterwards by a 
kindness which converted even his reprehension into a 

blessing. 

But, brethren, pass not this Uttle sentence too quickly 
by, " Ye know not what ye ask." Is it true of no other 
prayer that ever enters into the ear of the Saviour, ex- 
cept Salome's ? Christian parents, consider for a mo- 
ment, what is the tenor of your petitions for your 
children ? Do you seek great things for them ? Seek 
them not. Who can tell how many a soul hereafter, shall 
for ever curse the day, when a parent's prayers, or a 
parent's efforts, obtained for them those gratifying dis- 
tinctions of wealth, or honour, or worldly aggrandize- 
ment, for which their own hearts have panted. O, when 
you behold your children, in after life, following with 
avidity every golden bait which the world throws out to 
them, look back upon the prayers of their infancy, those 

31 



L 



362 LECTURE V. 

which you yourself offered from the blindness of an affec- 
tionate heart, and of which they are, perhaps, at this mo- 
ment, only reaping the natural harvest. Did you " seek 
first the kingdonn of God and his righteousness,"* for 
these objects of your warmest affections ? Was the Ian- 
guage of your prayers, Make my children thine, O 
God, give them the spirit of adoption, unite them to 
thyself, and then bestow upon them such a child's por- 
tion as seemeth thee good ? If every child were thus 
prayed for, faithfully, fervently, perseveringly, God only 
knows how much less frequently we should witness the 
triumph of worldly principles, not only over early in- 
struction, but alas even over natural affection, until self 
and the world are the only deities which are worshipped 
in the hard and barren heart. 

Our Lord continued, addressing himself to the bro- 
thers,— for although the mother preferred the request, 
Jesus knew that her sons had dictated it,— « Are ye 
able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be 
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?'' 
* Can you partake with me of the sufferings, deep and 
dreadful as you have just heard them to be, which now 
so shortly await me V " They say unto him, We are 
able."^ ' Yes, we have sat down first, and counted the 
cost ; we expect no ivory sceptres, and no jewelled 
crowns ; we wish for nothing higher, and nothing hap- 
pier, than to be permitted to follow thee, even to prison 
and death, and through much tribulation to enter into 
the kingdom of God.' At least such would the tenor 
of our Lord's reply lead us to hope were the feelings 
that filled the hearts of these best loved followers of our 

* Matthew ri. 30. 



I 



LECTURE V. 363 

Lord ; still is it language which no future disciple nnust 
ever imitate. What he might, by God's grace, have 
achieved, who lived so near the Saviour's heart, and 
leaned upon his breast, we cannot tell, as the Saviour 
denies not his ability even to tread the path which he 
was himself shortly called to travel ; but this we know 
by bitter experience, that there never yet in our own 
lives has been a trial so light, a temptation so feeble, 
that we have not sunk beneath the burden of the one, 
and been crushed before the strength of the other, if we 
have ventured, even in the most secret hiding-places of 
our heart, to whisper, " We are able !" O, how surely 
and how bitterly do we learn this lesson, if we dare to 
raise an arm against the powers of darkness, in our own 
enfeebled nakedness. It is only when we have put on 
" the w^hole armour of God,"* when our blessed Inter- 
cessor has prayed for us that our faith fail not, whent 
we feel that of ourselves we are nothing, and have no- 
thing, and can do nothing, but must lie at the foot of 
the cross, and receive all power, all strength, all ability, 
from thence, that we are alone able to adopt the trium- 
phant language of the apostle, " I can do all thin2^s, 
through Christ who strengtheneth me."f Our Lord 
continued, " Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be 
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with." 
Half, then, of the request was freely granted : sorrows 
are yours, sufferings, such as no tongue can tell, are 
yours, " to you it shall be given not only to believe, but 
also to suffer for the sake of Christ,"J and doubtless, 
consolations which no heart can conceive, shall be 
yours also ; in all these things you shall be conformed 

♦ Ephesians vi. 11. t Philippians iv. 13. t Philippians i. 29, 



364 LECTURE V. 

to myself; "but to sit on my right hand and on my 
left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them 
for whom it is prepared of my Father." i ^ 

It is scarcely necessary to remind you, that the im- 
portant clause in this verse, " it shall be given to them," 
printed in italics in our Bible, has no authority in the 
original, and that the verse, therefore, must always be 
understood with this omission, which at once restores 
the meaning to the passage, and makes it in full ac- 
cordance with the whole tenor of scripture, which as 
the verse stands in our translation, it certainly contra- 
diets. The declaration of our Lord is, "To sit on 
my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but 
for whom it is prepared of my Father." To any other, 
Christ himself could not, and would not, give it : but 
that it is his to give, is distinctly declared by our Lord, 
when he said, " The Father judgeth no man, but hath 
committed all judgment unto the Son."* 

When the remaining ten disciples heard of this re- 
quest of James and John, the evangelist adds, " They 
were moved with indignation against the two brethren," 
or, as St. Mark adds, " They began to be much dis- 
pleased with James and John." Would that we could 
believe that this was a righteous indignation, a holy 
anger, a heavenly zeal, for the spiritual welfare of these 
their companions : but alas ! there is too much reason 
to fear from our Lord's reply, as well as from the fre- 
quent subject of their private quarrels, that their anger 
was excited, not so much because James and John de- 
sired the pre-eminence, for we are expressly told, that 
they had all disputed by the way, which should be the 

* John V. 22. 



LECTURE V. 365 

greatest; but rather they were indignant that the bro- 
thers had preferred their claim to the disadvantage of 
the remainder, and by obtaining the influence of Salome, 
had, as it were, forestalled them in their request. How 
difficult is it even in the purest hearts, carefully to dis- 
tinguish where our holy hatred of sin terminates, and 
where our personal dislike to the sinner begins; how 
almost impossible to ascertain, whether their be nothing 
of pride wounded, vanity injured, counsel slighted, self- 
esteem trenched upon by the transgressor, against whose 
transgression we are so eloquently indignant, so vir- 
tuously angry. Be sure that the inspired apostle never 
spake a truer word than when he said, " Do not err, 
my beloved brethren,^'* ** for the wrath of man worketh 
not the righteousness of God."f It is easy to lash vice 
with an unsparing hand, and to speak severe and cutting 
things against delinquents ; but I question much, if a 
single soul were ever yet thus driven into the fold of the 
good Shepherd, or thus as it were dragged to the gates 
of heaven. Especially are we sure that the dwelling, 
as too many love to do, upon the faults of religious 
characters, and taking pleasure in holding up their 
frailties to the light, is one of the most dangerous prac- 
tices to our own souls, as well as one of the most in- 
jurious to the Church of the Redeemer. If we could 
have stood by the side of the ten apostles, while their 
indignation was rising, and their displeasure finding vent 
against James and John, it is not very improbable, that 
we should have heard the voice of Judas among the 
loudest, and found his indignation the most violent of 
all w^ho on that day condemned the sons cf Zebedee. 

* James i. 16. t James i 20. 

31* 



366 LECTURE V. 

Following now the order of St. Luke, we pass on to 
an incident recorded by him alone, and which, in all 
probability, occurred on the evening of the same day, 
in which was held the conversation we have been con- 
sidering. 

" Jesus entered and passed through Jericho, and be- 
hold, there was a man named Zaccheus, which was 
the chief among the publicans ; and he was rich." This, 
then, was the second man of wealth of whom we have 
heard in the transactions of a single day; for it was 
in the morning, ** while he was in the way," or on 
his road, that Jesus met the rich young ruler, and it 
was at his entrance into Jericho, the same afternoon, 
that we hear of Zaccheus; perhaps to destroy the pre- 
judice which our liOrd's remarks on riches might have 
excited in the minds of some of his disciples, and to 
show that if one rich man turned coldly away, there 
were others who would as ardently receive the salva- 
tion which he came to offer. 

"And Zaccheus sought to see Jesus who he was; and 
could not for the press, because he was little of stature. 
And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore 
tree to see him ; for he was to pass that way." Of all 
the conversions which we meet with in the course of 
our Lord's history, we know of none which does more 
honour the sovereignty and freeness of God's grace 
than this before us. No motive on the part of the in- 
quirer is even hinted at, beyond the simple desire to 
<* see Jesus, who he was;" to gratify this very natural, 
but it would be difficult, without knowing more of 
the circumstances, to say, very praiseworthy curiosity, 
Zaccheus leaves his home, mingles with the multitude, 
and finding all other efforts hopeless, resolves to climb 
some overhanging tree, close to the Saviour's path. 



LECTURE V. 367 

And there, while a thousand of his fellow-sinners were 
passing by below, did the grace of God discover, and 
call, and convert, and carry salvation to his soul. " For 
when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw 
him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste and 
come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house." 

Surely, brethren, in such an assemblage as the pre- 
sent, this ought not to be an unheeded or an unprofitable 
incident. Is there one individual who, ignorant of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, has come simply from motives of 
curiosity within these walls to-day ? Then to that one 
would I address myself. You are, perhaps, the Zac- 
cheus of this vast multitude. The Saviour whom you 
know not, has watched your coming; he has seen you 
enter these doors, and he has a message of kindness, 
and reconciHation, and love, expressly for yourself. 
Listen, then, to the history, and believe that what he 
there said to the publican, he is this day willing to say 
to you, although equally unseeking and unexpectant. 
More than one instance could we at this moment re- 
cord, if this were fitting opportunity, in which during 
the course of our ministry here, God has blessed his 
own word, listened to merely from curiosity, to the 
conversion of the heart, and ultimately, as we have 
every reason to believe, to the saving of the soul. How 
blessed a reflection does this give rise to in the heart of 
every true believer, that as the apostle says, " The word 
of God is not bound ;"* that although it is to be sought 
and received, through God's appointed means, and so 
sought, never is denied, yet is it also oftentimes vouch- 
safed where it is never sought, and that remarkable 
declaration of our God most fully verified, "I was found 

♦ 2 Timothy ii. 9. 



368 LECTURE V. 

of them that sought me not."* 0, the depth of the 
riches, of the mercy, and the love, as well as of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God.f How unsearchable 
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! It 
is thus that the Saviour comes to seek as well as to 
save them that are lost. He has searched for you, 
brethren, wdth the light of his grace, daring many an 
hour of spiritual darkness, when you have never thought 
of him. He has followed you, it may be to the haunts 
of iniquity, or assemblies of folly, and there, unseen by 
you, has thrown his protecting shield over you, and 
when your foot w^as placed upon forbidden paths, and 
your hand outstretched to pluck forbidden fruit, has 
interposed to save you from yourself, and has never left 
you, until he has rescued you from the snares of your 
spiritual enemy, and brought you to his great salvation. 
In continuing the history, we are not surprised to 
read that Zaccheus ^' made haste and came down, and 
received him joyfully." We might feel a doubt whether 
to ascribe the desire of Zaccheus to see an unknown 
Saviour, to any higher motive than curiosity, but we 
can have no doubt that other feelings were now kin- 
dling within him, when he demonstrated this marked 
alacrity, and at the Saviour's call. This, then, suggests 
the practical inquiry, brethren, How have you acted, 
w^hen Christ has manifested his search for you? when 
he has appeared to look for you X when you have heard 
him call ? When he has said unto you, " Seek ye my 
face ;"J has your soul answered readily and earnestly, 
^' Thy face, Lord, will I seek ?" Have you, Hke him of 
whom w^e are speaking, at once received him joyfully? 
If not, then how will you be one day self-condemned, 

* Isaiah Ixv. 1. t Romans xi. 33. | Psalm xxvii. 8. 



LECTURE V. 369 

when you stand side by side with this poor publican, 
who had but one offer from a Saviour's love, and in- 
stantly closed with it, and for ever; while you have had 
— but who can tell how many similar invitations have 
sounded in your ears — and yet, even to the present 
moment, you have afforded them no entrance into your 
affections and your heart. 

" And when they saw it," continues the evangehst, 
" they all murmured, saying that he was gone to be 
guest with a man that is a sinner." 

Blessed be God, this accusation was indeed a truth, 
and one not confined to any person or to any time ; as 
it was then, so is it now, the Saviour is the sinner's fre- 
quent guest. No heart so vile, so polluted, so sin-defiled, 
that Jesus refuses to enter there. If it were otherwise, 
where is the child of God, who this day calls him 
Father, who would not at the present moment be an 
outcast and an alien from that Father's house, and from 
the gates of heaven. 

" And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, Be- 
hold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor," 
not have given ; here was no boasting of what had been 
already done in days of his ignorance, but a simple 
declaration of what he was now ready, from this mo- 
ment, unhesitatingly to perform ; " and if I have taken 
any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore 
him fourfold." Observe the immediate fruits of a living 
faith ; from the very hour that the tree is planted, it 
begins to bear, never even for one moment barren. 
How marked, then, would be the difference to all around 
him, when Zaccheus went, on the following morning, 
as usual, to the receipt of custom. The poor from 
whom he had before, in all probability, turned scorn- 
fully away, in all the pride of newly-gotten wealth, now 



370 LECTURE V. 

relieved to the amount of half his property. Those 
who had dealings with him, and who had hitherto, per- 
haps, been over-reached and defrauded, now receiving 
a retribution, such as the strictest law never yet award- 
ed, even fourfold. These, indeed, were signs which 
none could mistake, known and read of all men. These 
were marks of true conversion, evidences that his was 
the religion of the heart. 

'' And Jesus said unto him. This day is salvation come 
to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham." 
This was our Lord's own comment after hearing the 
declaration of Zaccheus. 
^, Brethren, if salvation be truly come into your houses, 
we are entitled to ask, not what is your profession, but 
where are the fruits ? Are they seen by the manner in 
which your households are conducted? Is God openly 
acknowledged and honoured there ? Is there secret 
prayer in your chambers ? Is there social prayer 
with your families ? Is there retribution where your 
conscience tells you it is needful? Is there charity, 
expressed not in words, but in acts for your poorer 
brethren? How often must you be told, that true reli- 
gion is a practical thing, influencing every temper, 
every -word, every thought, seen in all the arrange- 
ments of a household, in all the converse of a family, in 
all the pursuits and pleasures of domestic life. 

The profession of religion is extending at the present 
day, far and w^ide, and God be thanked, we believe 
also, its blessed reaUty ; but be not deceived ; they are 
not necessarily united ; many deceive others upon this 
subject, some deceive themselves, but of this be assured, 
that there is no true test of discipleship, but holy con- 
sistent obedience, the fruit of faith, and springing from 
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Wanting 



LECTURE V. 371 

this, the Saviour has not yet entered your house, has 
not yet been received into your hearts ; if you are at 
this moment self-condemned upon this great subject, if 
you feel, * It is true, my religion hitherto has been far 
more nominal than real; there has been nothing purify- 
ing, nothing sanctifying, nothing really operative and 
influential in my creed, my desires are much what they 
ever were, my toleration of little sins in my own heart 
and conduct much what it ever was : my longing after 
this world's advantages, my thirst for this world's plea- 
sures, as strong as I have ever felt them; be taught, we 
beseech you, by the example before us, that yours cannot 
be the religion of the Gospel, the salvation of Jesus 
Christ. You may have had a transient interest in the 
things belonging to your peace, but there has been no 
vital abiding apprehension of them; you may have had 
many feelings of respect for the Lord Jesus Christ, but 
there has not, there cannot have been a real, heartfelt, 
permanent reception of him in all his offices, into the 
soul. This, then, is the work, the great foundation 
work, which after all your profession, has not yet been 
done, which you have yet to do, and we most earnestly 
call upon you to do it this day ; we address you in the 
beautiful language of your own Apostolical Church, and 
say, Now, therefore, ** receive Christ, not for a time, but 
for ever;" now "believe his word, not for a time, but 
for ever ;" now, " become his servants, not for a time, 
but for ever :" in consideration that " he hath redeemed 
and saved you, not for a time, but for ever ; and will 
receive you into his everlasting kingdom, there to reign 
with him, not for a time, but for ever. To him, there- 
fore, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all honour, 
praise, and glory, for ever and ever."* 

* Homilies, p. 364, 8vo.— Oxford, 1802. 



372 



LECTURE VI. 

Mark xiv. 8. 

" She hath done what she could." 

At the commencement of these Lectures for the pre- 
sent season, there were circumstances which rendered 
the undertaking more than usually arduous, and had it 
not been, that we were in some degree enabled to cast 
our burden of inabiUty and weakness upon him, who in 
his own word has invited us so to do ; and to look for 
that sympathy in your forbearance and your prayers, 
which a long and happy experience has taught us we 
might rely upon, we should scarcely have ventured to 
have engaged in it. " Having, however, obtained help 
of the Lord, we continue to this day," and now have 
only, in this our closing discourse, to record our grati- 
tude and our thanksgiving as publicly, as we aforetime 
did our weakness and our wants ; praising the name of 
our God for such portion of aid as he has extended to 
our feebleness, and blessing him, if he has been pleased 
to speak one word of guidance to the ignorant, or of 
help to the weak, or of comfort to the distressed, by one 
of the meanest of his instruments. 

After the important visit to Zaccheus, which took 
place during the Saviour's last journey to Jerusalem, and 
which has been very distinctly proved to have occurred 
on the Friday, in the week preceding the sufferings of 



LECTURE VI. 373 

our Lord, we hear of him next, in order of time, in the 
12th chapter of St. John. 

" Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to 
Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, 
whom he raised from the dead." — The time which is 
here so plainly pointed out, is a key to all the remaining 
circumstances in our Lord's history. By an attention to 
it, we shall be enabled to follow the Saviour during the 
transactions of every day, and almost every hour, which 
now remain of his mortal existence ; it is, therefore, 
obviously well worthy of a few moments' consideration. 
We have seen that the evangelist narrates, that Jesus 
arrived in Bethany six days before the Passover, on 
which he suffered. Now as there is no question that our 
Lord was put to death on the Friday, the Sunday pre- 
ceding would be the sixth day, and as the days were 
calculated by the Jews from sunset to sunset, and our 
Lord apparently arrived in time for supper, he would 
necessarily go to Bethany on the Saturday evening after 
the close of the Jewish Sabbath. Where that last Sab- 
bath was spent, does not appear, ahhough it seems pro- 
bable that it was passed at the house of Zaccheus, 
between Jericho and Bethphage, the village at which our 
Lord would turn off from the direct road between 
Jericho and Jerusalem, to fulfil his intention of visiting 
Bethany.* 

That the incident to which I am now about to direct 
your attention is the same, notwithstanding the apparent 
discrepancies, as that related in the 26th chapter of St. 
Matthew, and in the 14th of St. Mark, we feel no doubt, 
although the nature of these Lectures will not allow us 

* Luke xix. 28. 

32 



374 LECTURE VI. 

to state the proofs, or to answer the objections, which 
a casual reader would unquestionably raise. Feeling 
convinced, however, that the three narratives all record 
the same incident, we shall, as on former occasions, take 
the particulars from each of the three evangelists, for the 
purpose of amplifying the statement of St. John, the 
supplemental character of his Gospel leading him al- 
ways to be diffuse where the preceding evangeHsts have 
abridged, and to be concise where they have already 
enlarged. 

" Jesus being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the 
leper," " there they made him a supper, and Martha 
served : but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the 
table with him." It is impossible not to feel pleasure at 
finding ourselves once more in company, as it were, 
with this holy family. Of Simon, at whose house they 
were now assembled, we know nothing beyond the fact, 
that he had been a leper, and probably one whom Jesus 
had cleansed, and a near neighbour of these most inti- 
mate friends of our Lord. What an assembly must that 
have been, and how peeuharly well qualified to strengthen 
the hearts of the apostles for the trying week upon 
which they were entering. Their host, the healed leper ; 
their companion, the risen Lazarus ; their attendants, his 
devotedly pious sisters; their chief attraction the pre- 
sence of their divine and blessed Master. To have 
passed but one hour in such a company would have far 
outbalanced all the pleasures, and all the privileges of 
the world ! Jesus himself was clearly not insensible to 
the comfort and delight of such society, or to the sym- 
pathy of them that feared the Lord ; he sought it, must 
I add, unavailingly, even in Gethsemane ; he most as- 
suredly found it in that tranquil evening hour with which 



LECTURE VI. 375 

his last Sabbath upon earth closed in, surrounded by the 
objects of his mercy, and the partakers of his love, at 
Bethany. " Then canne a woman, having an alabaster 
box of ointment of spikenard, very precious," "and 
anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her 
hair," " and breaking the box, poured it on his head" 
** as he sat at meat." 

St. Matthew and St. Mark are silent as to the name of 
her who performed this costly act of love and gratitude 
to the Saviour, probably for the same reason that they 
are silent as to the resurrection of Lazarus ; for if 
their mention of that astonishing miracle, while the 
object of it yet was living, would have compromised his 
safety, which was no doubt the cause of their silence, the 
introduction of his pious sister's name would have been 
equally dangerous, and therefore was w^ithheld. When 
St. John, how^ever, at a very advanced age, wrote his 
Gospel, great and many were the changes which had 
occurred, and no such precaution was needed. All that 
happy family had been gathered again to their Lord, 
and had once more sat down with him, but now^ at his 
everlasting table, therefore, all danger of persecution, 
which the mention of their names might have aroused, 
was for ever over. It is impossible, at this thought, not 
to digress for a moment from the persons of whom we 
are reading, to the writer himself, the beloved St. John. 
How often, while engaged upon this chapter, must his 
mind have travelled back to this well-remembered 
season ; how blank and dreary would have been the re- 
trospect, had not the rays of coming glory been suffi- 
ciently powerful to enlighten every by-gone mile of his 
long and weary journey. Of all who had sat with him at 
the evening feast in Bethany, not one remained. Simon, 



376 LECTURE VI. 

Lazarus, Martha, Mary, the apostles, the Lord himself; 
all gone before him to their rest, and he standing alone, 
the last of his generation, " as the shaking of an oUve 
tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is 
done."* Melancholy yet blessed privilege, to be thus 
spared to record what none had told, and yet what the 
church has cherished, and shall continue to cherish, till 
time shall be no longer. 

With her who performed the act of which St. John 
has written, we are well acquainted as one of the best 
loved followers of our Lord. While so characteristic 
was the act in which we find her now engaged, that had 
no name been mentioned, even by S4:. John, few who 
read attentively these Bible stories, but would have ex- 
claimed, when they heard that the feet of Jesus had been 
anointed at Bethany, Then most certainly must this have 
been performed by her, whose accustomed place we 
know it was to " sit at Jesus' feet, and hear his word." 
And such the apostle assures us was the fact ; " the 
woman" mentioned by St. Matthew and St. Mark, is dis- 
tinctly declared by St. John, to be the Mary, with whose 
character we are already so well acquainted. Whether 
anticipating, that the time of our Lord's departure was 
at hand, or only guided by the dictates of a grateful 
love, we know not, but certainly never was there a more 
acceptable, or a more precious offering, than this, now 
tendered by his affectionate and simple-hearted follower. 

" The house was filled with the odour of the ointment." 
As we are not told that a single word was exchanged 
between the Saviour and her who brought the offering, 
it is more than probable that the attention of the com- 

* Isaiah xvii. 6. 



LECTURE VI. 377 

pany was first invited to the act of devotedness and 
love which Mary had performed, by the delicious per- 
fume of the ointment. We are sure that she herself 
would not have courted observation, and that if no eye 
but his had seen the deed of which we are speaking, she 
would have been far better satisfied. But love like hers 
cannot be hidden — it is too prodigal a feeling : had she 
felt less, she would certainly have oflTered less, and thus 
have escaped both the observation and the censure by 
which her deed was followed. But where the love is 
strong, the oflfering will be large ; so large, as in the eye 
of the world to look like profusion and extravagance ; 
and this, not so much because the requirements of God 
are great, as because all that we have, and all that we 
are, will appear to ourselves far too little to cast upon 
his altar, whom we desire to love with all our heart, and 
mind, and soul, and strength. Brethren, your love is then 
most Uke the love of Mary, most like that grace which 
the Saviour values highest, not only when its fruits are 
abundant, but when it is revealed only by its eflfects, 
when your whole house is filled with its fragrancy, and 
every inmate can discover by your kindness, and affec- 
tion, by your gentleness and self-denial, by your meek- 
ness and charity, at whose feet you have laid the 
offering of a broken and a contrite heart. 

But we must pass from the feelings of this poor wo- 
man, to those of one who belonged, alas ! to a far dif- 
ferent order, and who served another master though he 
sat at the same table, and was admitted outwardly at 
least, to the same delightful and blessed intercourse. 
'' Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's 
son, which should betray him. Why was not this oint- 
ment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the 

32* 



378 LECTURE VI. 

poor ?" " This he said, not that he cared for the poor ; 
but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare 
what was put therein." " Was a thief and had the bag." 
How remarkable a union ! Did, then, our Lord so little 
know the characters of those by whom he was surround- 
ed, as thus to entrust the only dishonest man among them 
with their wealth ? No: he who knew the heart of man, 
knew that none so urgently desired the office as that 
covetous apostle, and therefore to him he gave it. 
Dreadful mark of God's purposes of judicial vengeance, 
when he thus, as David says, gives the sinner the desire 
of his heart, and does not estrange him from his lust, 
leaving him blindfold on the path which leads directly 
to the edge of the precipice, where no restraining arm 
will be outstretched to prevent his fall. It might be also 
for something more than the w^ell deserved punishment 
of his covetousness, or his dishonesty, it might be, to 
mark how lightly Christ esteems what men consider 
the good things of this world, that we find him thus, in 
two successive passages, promising the cup of bitterness, 
and the baptism of suffering, to James and John, but 
giving the bag to Judas. 

As soon as Jesus heard what was going forward, he 
said unto them, " Why trouble ye the woman, for she 
hath wrought a good work upon me. For you have 
the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye 
may do them good, but me ye have not always. She 
hath done what she could; she is come aforehand to 
anoint my body to the burying. Verily, I say unto you, 
wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout 
the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be 
spoken of for a memorial of her." 

Brethren, " this day is this scripture fulfilling in your 



LECTURE VI. 379 

ears ;" what Mary did, is this day spoken of as a me- 
morial of her, and the commendation of the Saviour 
recorded as an honour to her, and presented as a 
warning, and as an encouragement to yourselves ; 
"She hath done what she could." There is not a 
more affecting tribute of approbation to be met with 
throughout the scriptures of truth, not one which comes 
home more directly to the heart, " She hath done what 
she could." The poorest, and weakest, therefore, among 
us, could have done as much; the highest archangel who 
stands at God's right ha,nd, could do no more. It is, then, 
a most fair and reasonable subject for self-examination. 
You have been sent into this world with a specific object 
set before you, which all the wealth, and pleasures, and 
honours of life, have been unable to conceal from your 
view ; that object is, to prepare for an eternity, to be 
spent in the presence of our God, and of his Christ, and 
amidst the unfading joys of his everlasting kingdom. 
Or, in other words, but practically, precisely the same 
thing, to live to the honour and glory of God, during 
this, your only time of preparation. Now" we solemnly 
ask of you, as those who have " the charge over you in 
the Lord," and w^ho "watch for your souls, as they that 
must give account," can we say of each one among you, 
or rather can you say of yourselves, *I have done what 
I could V 

Surely this does not sound like the demand of "an 
austere man," "reaping w^here he has not sown, and 
gathering where he has not strawed ;" what could the 
most indulgent parent ask of you less than this ? Not, 
have you done great things for Christ, have you achieved 
much for the glory of God in your day and generation, 
but simply, have you done w^hat you could in the pro- 



380 LECTURE VI. 

motion of God's glory, in the work of your own salva- 
tion ? You could, brethren — for this is far too important 
a matter to dispose of in a single sentence; we must fol- 
low you into your homes and into your hearts — you could 
have been, day by day, and year by year, throughout 
your lives, very urgent with your heavenly Father in 
secret, heartfelt, faithful prayer, to correct that which 
conscience, under the teaching of God's Spirit, has long 
since told you was hateful to God, and destructive to 
your own souls; your pride, your lust, your covetous- 
ness, your temper, your self-sufficiency, your worldli- 
ness. You could have dedicated a portion of every day 
to the earnest, prayerful searching of God's revealed 
word. You could have practised such self-denial with 
regard to the things of this world, such an obedience 
to the command, ''Come out from among them and be 
ye separate, saith the Lord," as would, by God's grace, 
have tended most materially to quicken your progress 
on the heavenward road, and your attainment of far 
higher degrees of sanctification, and nearer spiritual 
communion with your great and glorified Head. You 
could, by the same grace, never withheld from those 
who seek it, have checked many an improper desire 
when first kindling in your heart; have carried forth 
into holy and consistent practice many a good resolu- 
tion which the Spirit of God has implanted in your 
mind, and have become by this period of your lives, 
the holy, firm, and consistent follower of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, even in the midst of a wicked and per- 
verse generation. These and a thousand others, which 
your own hearts will have suggested, even while I have 
been speaking, you most unquestionably could have 
done ; now then, brethren, we repeat the inquiry, Have 



LECTURE VI. 381 

you done what you could ? How many among you 
stand self-sentenced, self-condemned ! O, may the 
inquiry be to them a warning word in season ; that 
they may gather up fresh strength, fresh resolution, 
fresh energy to begin as it were from the present 
moment, a course of earnest, faithful, persevering holi- 
ness ; and whatever their hand findeth to do, doing it 
with their might ; knowing that " there is no device, 
nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither we 
are going." 

While to some among you, how sweet and blessed a 
word of encouragement does it suggest. You have 
grieved deeply over efforts after holiness which sin has 
frustrated ; prayers which Satan has spoiled ; hopes 
which your own corrupt hearts have withered ; you can 
hardly mark the slightest increase of spiritual strength, 
the least advance in godhness, the smallest approach to 
a more perfect conformity to your Saviour and your 
God. Yet you can say, " That which I do, I allow not, 
for what I could, that I do not, but what I hate, that 
do I ;"* " to will, is indeed present with me, but how to 
perform that which is good, I find not."f Then take 
courage, be not cast down ; many as weak a follower 
as yourself has trodden the king's highway, and is now 
safe within the walls of Zion. Only persevere faithfully, 
earnestly, and simply, in doing all you can, seeking more 
grace, practising more self-denial, trusting more impli- 
citly, and in the end the commendation of Mary shall 
be your own, " She hath done what she could." And 
if it cannot be strictly said, " Well done, good and faith- 
ful servant," it may yet be said, " Enter thou into the 
joy of thy Lord." 

* Romans vii. 15. t Romaas vii. 18. 



382 LECTURE VI. 

By comparing the different narratives of the evange- 
lists, there seems little doubt that our Lord remained 
during the whole of the following day in retirement at 
Bethany. This would be, as we have seen, the Christian 
Sunday ; and the day, although not then consecrated to 
the glory of God, must have been spent in a manner 
peculiarly appropriate to the duties by which it was 
soon about to be so highly honoured. For the rumour 
having reached Jerusalem that our Lord was tarrying 
within so short a distance of the city, " much people of 
the Jews," as St. John tells us, " flocked from the city 
to Bethany during that day," and they came not for 
Jesus' sake only, but that they might see the risen Laza- 
rus, who had probably absented himself from the period 
of his resurrection, almost to the very time of our Lord's 
present visit. Thus the Sunday would no doubt be spent 
in the most profitable spiritual intercourse with the in- 
quiring Jews ; while, as many w^ere going to and fro, 
the fame of our Lord would be carried back into the 
city, at this time the resort of the thousands and tens of 
thousands who came up, from all parts of the country, 
for the Passover, and men's minds would be prepared, 
and a great and solemn expectation of the coming 
Saviour excited, to insure the King of Israel that degree 
of honour which he now for the first and last time 
claimed, and which it w^as necessary, for the fulfilment 
of prophecy, should be awarded him. It was on the 
following morning, then, the Monday of what we now 
denominate Passion week, that the first procession of 
our Lord to Jerusalem took place. The time had at 
length arrived, when all the reserve which, for wise 
and obvious purposes, Jesus had hitherto assumed upon 
the subject of the Messiahship, was to be cast aside 



LECTURE VT. 383 

for ever. Now the hour had come when the Son of 
man was to be glorified ; pubUcly acknowledged as 
the Prophet, openly recognised as a King. Having, 
therefore, sent forward two of his disciples to fetch 
the ass, and the colt, the foal of an ass, upon which, 
as the prophet Zechariah had most distinctly fore- 
told, the King, even the spiritual King of Israel, 
should enter Jerusalem, our Lord commenced the de- 
scent of the Mount of Olives. It was then, that for 
the first time, the enthusiasm of the people knew no 
bounds. The crowds which accompanied him from 
Bethany, were soon met by the multitudes which had 
poured forth from the overflowing city ; many with 
branches of palm trees, and others, according to orien- 
tal custom, with loose garments in their hands to strew 
in the way, while, as we may gather from the narrative, 
at the confluence of these tv^o mighty streams, all w^ith 
one heart and one voice, raised at once the exulting cry, 
" Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in 
the name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest." 

How^ striking a fulfilment of the words of the prophet, 
" Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daugh- 
ter of Jerusaleni : behold, thy King cometh unto thee ; 
he is just, and having salvation ; lowly, and riding upon 
an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." 

Now let us for a moment turn our attention from the 
enthusiasm of the multitude, seldom excited in so good 
and holy a cause, to him who was the object of it. Be- 
hold him, Hke the prophets of old, seated upon an ass, 
and yet receiving the acclamations of the unnumbered 
multitudes who hailed him as a king. Riding in the 
midst of that vast concourse, totally indifferent to their 
applauses, his soul overwhelmed with the deepest feel- 
ings of commiseration and pity ; at that triumphant mo- 



384 LECTURE VI. 

ment as sensible of the melancholy truth, ** They know 
not what they do," as when upon the following Friday, 
they were nailing him to the cross. It was at the lower 
part of the descent of Mount Olivet, when they were 
drawing near the city, that the vast procession halted. 
Their divine leader appeared about to speak, and every 
tongue was hushed, and every eye was turned to him, of 
whose praises they were then so loudly prodigal; when as 
they look, behold the Saviour, no longer controlling his 
emotion, burst into a flood of tears, and poured forth his 
threatened wo upon their country, their families, them- 
selves. For " when he was come near," says St. Luke, 
*' he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou 
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the 
things which belong unto thy peace ! but now, they are 
hid from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, 
that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and 
compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and 
shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children 
within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one stone 
upon another ; because thou knewest not the time of thy 
visitation." 

What vast additional force, what a powerful increase 
of interest, does this memorable prediction acquire from 
the circumstances under which it was delivered. The 
very enthusiasm, and turbulent rejoicing of the multi- 
tude, only bring into stronger contrast the deep depres- 
sion, and awful denunciation of the Saviour. He felt 
no joy from the ten thousand acclamations which at that 
moment awoke the echoes of Mount Olivet ; he was 
looking down upon the condemned and guilty city which 
lay at his feet, thinking of the miracles he had wrought 
in her market-places, the sermons he had preached in 



LECTURE VI. 385 

her streets, and the multitude of her devoted inhabitants, 
the great mass of her population, utterly insensible to 
all that he had ever taught, utterly ignorant of their own 
approaching fate ; while, of the crowds whose voices 
then rent the air with benedictions, how many ere that 
week was over who would join as loudly and as heartily 
in the cry, " Crucify him, crucify him." 

Brethren, it is a thought of no ordinary solemnity, 
that the sentence then passed upon Jerusalem, was 
passed not upon her walls and her palaces, not upon 
her towers and her temple alone, but upon her children ; 
upon many thousand families as happy and as thoughtless 
as your own, upon millions of individuals as regardless 
as some among yourselves. And what was it which 
had thus sealed their condemnation, and shut them out 
for ever from the hope of a reprieve ? Was it sin, open, 
flagrant sin ? No, if that were the cause, then indeed 
might we repeat the disciple's inquiry, " Who then can 
be saved ?" What would become of all the generations 
of men, of our families, of ourselves ? It was not that 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem were sinners above all who 
ever lived — there is no reason to imagine this ; for is not 
even their crime of deepest dye, the murder of the Lord 
of life, repeated every day by those who, as the apostle 
declares, " Crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him 
to an open shame."* It was not, then, their sin. No, 
it was their impenitence, their unbelief, it was simply 
because they refused to attend to the things which be- 
longed to their peace, rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, 
with every offer of his mercy and every promise of his 
salvation. Our Lord distinctly asserts that this, and this 

* Hebrews vi. 6* 

33 



386 LECTURE VI. 

alone, was the cause of their condemnation. " If thou 
hadst known, even thou, the things which belong unto 
thy peace" — surely no one can doubt that the remainder 
of the sentence would have been, " even thou mightest 
have been saved." 

But the time was past, the hour run out, and our 
Lord checks himself in that unfinished sentence, and 
only adds this most appalling conclusion, " But now 
they are hid from thine eyes." 

My beloved brethren, can we close the present course 
of lectures w^th a more solemn. warning? We apply 
ourselves especially to you, whom we have the privilege 
at this season, and only at this season, of addressing. 
Before we meet again, if God in his mercy should ever 
permit us such a meeting, great and many will be the 
changes which the revolving year will bring; some 
may, no doubt, some shall be called from the indistinct 
vision of the word of God, reflected from the glass of 
man's infirmity, to the immediate presence of the living 
Word, and of his glory, to see face to face. Suffer, 
then, one w^ord of exhortation before we part. The 
things belonging to your peace have, we trust, plainly 
and faithfully, according to the degree of light with 
which God has blessed us, been declared to you, so that 
we may say with Moses, " See, I have set before thee 
this day, life and death and evil." 

Is there, then, one who has heard within these walls 
invitations of mercy, without exception and without 
reserve, and yet has heard them unmoved, uninfluenced, 
unconvinced ? to him we would say, Here is yet one 
more, it may be one last entreaty, from the God of all 
your mercies, he invites you, nay, beseeches you by us 
this day, that you would throw down the weapons of 



LECTURE VI. 387 

rebellion, and receive the engrafted v^ord which is able 
to save your soul. Do you again refuse, do you again 
procrastinate, is our Lord still compelled to say of you, 
ye will not come unto me that ye might have life ? then 
who shall assure you that the sentence passed upon 
Jerusalem shall be withheld from yourself: "If thou 
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the 
things which belong unto thy peace" — but now the time 
has fled, that moment is for ever past, — " now they are 
hid from thine eyes." Years of health and happiness 
may perhaps await you, time may roll on, and bring 
you every delight, and every comfort which the world 
can proffer ; your lot may excite the admiration and the 
envy of all around you, and yet it is possible, that never 
from this hour may you again be visited by the convic- 
tions of sin, the desire for Christ, the longing for salva- 
tion. All things temporal may be joyous around you, 
and yielding an abundant harvest, while all spiritual 
may be dark and barren, " the things belonging to your 
peace" for ever hidden from your eyes, no God, no 
Christ, no heaven. 

Who will refuse to pray that our great and glorious 
Intercessor may avert so fearful, so unutterably dread- 
ful a sentence from every individual here present ; that 
God, even our own God, may bless us, and that the 
truths now preached in great infirmity, may be received 
in the love of them, and bring forth fruit a hundred fold 
to the honour and praise of God ; until that hour, when 
through the merits of his dear Son, both we who speak, 
and you who hear, without a single exception, shall 
re-assemble in the many mansions of our Father's 
house. 



EXPOSITORY LECTURES. 



NOTICE. 

m The Expository Lectures which follow were written 
merely for the purpose stated in the first discourse, of 
attracting if possible a larger proportion of the congre- 
gation to the valuable week-day services of our Church 
which immediately precede Easter. That such an 
exertion should be needed, is perhaps neither creditable 
to minister nor people ; but all must have remarked 
how thinly the prayers of the Church are usually 
attended, unless accompanied by some such addition 
as was aimed at in the present Lectures. That they 
were never intended for publication will perhaps be 
sufficiently obvious from internal evidence : as all were 
deUvered during Passion week, each was hastily com- 
posed in the evening preceding the morning on which 
it was preached, and every aid within reach was made 
use of, that could render the Lectures more instructive 
or more interesting. 

It need hardly be added, that the author never con- 
templated employing these familiar expositions as a 
conclusion to his history of our Lord ; but in the pros- 



392 NOTICE. 

pect of not being permitted to finish a work in which 
he has long been deeply interested, he has thought it 
well to attend to the often expressed desire of members 
of his congregation, and rather to suffer these very 
inadequate representations of the last days of the 
Saviour to accompany the former Lectures, than to 
leave the subject, as he must otherwise have done, 
wholly unconcluded. 



EXPOSITORY LECTURES. 



LECTURE I. 



St. John xvii. 24. 



" Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with 
me where I am, that they may behold my glory." 

The solemn season which is approaching, brethren, 
has led me to select the words of the text from one of 
the most important portions of Scripture, which mark 
the close of the earthly sojourn of our divine Master. 
My object in this is to second the admirable arrange- 
ment of our Church during the week* upon which we 
have this day entered, by concentrating all our thoughts, 
and all our affections, on him who is the great subject 
of her services ; and as I have on former occasions 
grieved to observe the comparatively small proportion 
of our congregation which attends upon the week-day 
service, when prayer is wont to be made, I purpose, if 

* Passion week. 



394 LECTURE I. 

the Lord will, to accompany the daily prayers by a 
short exposition of Scripture, appropriate to those high 
and blessed subjects, which ought in an especial man- 
ner to occupy the mind, and to fill the heart, of every 
sincere follower of our Lord, during the commemora- 
tion of this his time of greatest and most appalling suf- 
ferings. 

For this purpose, we commence to-day with the last 
hour of our Lord's Hfe, which preceded that time of his 
suffering : intending in these daily services to consider 
each period of his sufferings in the order in which it 
occurred, hoping that by God's grace, we shall thus 
obtain far juster, and far deeper views, of the countless 
price at which our redemption w^as purchased, than we 
have ever yet attained to. 

We shall begin by endeavouring to ascertain the 
place and time in which the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th 
chapters of St. John were spoken by our Lord. We 
shall discover from the context, that the place was the 
large upper chamber at Jerusalem in which the Lord 
Jesus Christ had just partaken of the Passover with his 
disciples, and the time from eight to eleven o'clock at 
night. 

First, with respect to the place. In all probabihty, 
" the house in which the supper occurred, was in the 
eastern division of the city, for the messengers sent by 
our Lord to prepare the Passover would enter Jerusa- 
lem necessarily from the direction of Bethany, where 
our Lord had slept on the preceding night ; and they 
may be presumed, to have found the house almost as 
soon as they entered the city."* It is interesting to 

* Greswell's Dissertations. 






LECTURE I. 395 

remember this, becaus^e it marks the distance of this 
spot, as well as its direction, from those scenes in the 
Garden, and on the Mount, which we shall shortly en- 
deavour to investigate ; and nothing will tend more to 
impress them upon our memories and our hearts, than 
their possessing a local habitation in our minds. ^^ 

The disciples, then, having, as our Lord directed 
them, followed " the man bearing a pitcher of water," 
whom they were to meet as soon as they entered the 
city, occupied by his permission the large upper room, 
which they found furnished and prepared, and there 
partook of the Passover with their divine Master. 
Having concluded the Paschal feast, Jesus proceeded 
to institute the Sacrament of the Lord's supper ; either 
immediately before, or immediately after this, Judas the 
traitor left the apartment, for the purpose of concluding 
his horrible arrangements with the chief priests and 
elders. Our Lord's directions to him, " That thou 
doest, do quickly," which the disciples understood to 
mean, " Buy those things which we have need of against 
the feast," will very readily help us to determine at what 
part of the night this incident took place, since it must 
have been before the shops were shut up in Jerusalem,* 
and probably at the second or third hour of the night, 
i. e. between seven and eight o'clock on the Thursday 
evening, preceding the day of our Lord's great sacrifice : 
from this time, then, until the time they went forth into 
the garden, which was between eleven and twelve 
o'clock, Jesus was alone with the eleven disciples, and 

* See ** Rev. T. GreswelFs Dissertations." Not having the work at hand, 
and having made no note at the time, I am unable to refer more particularly 
to this, and to many other ingenious suggestions for which I am indebted to 
that elaborate and interesting work. 



396 LECTURE I. 

these are the hours that were occupied in delivering the 
discourses which are contained in the 14th, 15th, and 
16th chapters of this Gospel, and that sublime and 
beautiful prayer, which is contained in the 17th chap- 
ter, and which forms one of the richest and most in- 
valuable legacies that the Church has ever received 
from its divine and blessed Founder. 

I shall content myself this morning with giving you 
some general idea of the prayer itself, and with dwell- 
ing briefly upon two or three of its most important pas- 
sages. 

First, then, with respect to the prayer itself: it may 
be divided into three distinct portions. In the first of 
these, which occupies the five opening verses of the 
chapter, our Lord prays that he may be glorified with 
the Father, with that glory which he had with him be- 
fore the world began. 

2. From the 16th to the 19th verse, our Lord petitions 
for two great blessings for the eleven apostles ; ** Keep 
through thine own name those whom thou hast given 
me," and "Sanctify them through thy truth;" while 
each of these petitions for divine keeping, and for sanc- 
tification, are urged by different arguments, and pressed 
upon diflferent grounds. 

3. From the 19th verse to the end of the chapter, 
our Lord prays for his whole Church, in every age, 
under the name of " them which shall believe on me 
through their word," i. e. through the preaching or 
writings of the apostles. And he asks for them these 
unspeakable blessings. 

1. Spiritual union with God the Father and our Lord 
Jesus Christ; "As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be one in us." 



LECTURE I. 397 

11. The spiritual unity of the Church itself, "That 
they may be one, even as we are one." 

And, lastly, in the words of the text, that all his 
Church, as it shall, in answer to his prayer, be united 
to him here below, may also be re-united to him in 
heaven for ever. " Father, I will that they also, whom 
thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they 
may behold my glory." 

Thus much for the analysis of the prayer itself. We 
proceed to offer a few observations upon the three 
practical points in it; upon God's keeping — God's 
sanctifying — and God's glorifying the people of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

1. Upon God's keeping: "Holy Father," said our 
Divine Master, 11th verse, "Keep through thine own 
name those whom thou hast given me ;" and again, 15th 
verse," I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the 
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." 

Observe here, our Lord's great and high and solemn 
reverence in prayer, when publicly made before his 
disciples, as a model for their intercessions, "Holy 
Father." Who, with such an example before him, 
would presume to draw near unto God with any feel- 
ings of levity, or carelessness, or familiarity, when we 
see even the only begotten Son, as Mediator, speaking 
thus humbly, thus reverentially. Observe again, that 
our Lord does not entreat his Father to take his people 
out of the world, i. e. to remove them at once by death 
from the face of the earth, but to keep them under his 
divine guidance and protection, while tarrying there. 
If, therefore, yours, brethren, be, as every Christian's at 
some period or other is, the mourner's lot, whatever be 
your griefs, your anxieties or your difficulties, learn 

34 



398 LECTURE I. 

that God's time is assuredly the best time both for their 
removal and your own, and is to be patiently and thank- 
fully waited for. 

Neither does our Lord ask his heavenly Father to 
keep his beloved people from the troubles, the distresses, 
the heart-rending sorrows of the world; not a word is 
expressed upon this point throughout the whole of the 
prayer before us ; " Keep them from the evil," is the 
great subject of our Lord's entreaty. There is no evil 
necessarily in sorrow, certainly none in sanctified sor- 
row ; sin, and sin alone, is unmixed evil, and therefore 
from this alone did our Lord so urgently petition that 
his people might be kept. 

Now let us examine for a moment the manner in 
which our Lord describes those for whom his petition 
is offered. 16th verse, "They are not of the world, 
even as I am not of the world." Brethren, this then is 
the description of persons for whom Christ prayed! 
" Not of the world." It is no uncommon thing to hear 
advanced, in favour of a certain degree of conformity 
to the pleasures and follies and habits of the world, that 
our Lord described his people as being " in the world, 
and not of the world." Our Lord assuredly never 
drew any such distinction, in the manner, or with the 
intention, which such persons would wish us to under- 
stand. When he prayed that his disciples might re- 
main in the world, it is perfectly obvious that he used 
the word as expressive of the globe itself, the earth on 
which we Uve, move and have our being ; that, in fact, 
he simply meant that they might continue to live. 
When he declares that they were not of the world, 
he clearly uses the word as we are accustomed at 
the present day to use it, meaning the people of the 
world, and therefore asserts that they for whom he 



LECTURE I. 399 

was interceding were not conformed to the world, were 
not living in its follies, were not numbered among its 
people. He even makes this distinction still more 
clear, and pointed, and undeniable, in the 9th verse, 
when he says, — " I pray for them ; I pray not for 
the world, but for them which thou hast given me; 
for they are thine." Is it to be believed, brethren, 
that the Lord Jesus Christ now intercedes in heaven 
for those for whom he prayed not while on earth? 
Can we conceive such a change in an unchangea- 
ble Being? That declaring while on earth, that he 
prayed not for those who, wedded to the world, re- 
fused his Gospel, despised his promises, rejected him- 
self, he should now be employed, throughout all time, 
in interceding for these in heaven, for whom, while 
upon earth, he prayed not. No, surely the same limita- 
tion must exist now, as existed then, " I pray for them 
whom thou hast given me;" all, in every age and every 
clime, who hear and receive the Gospel of salvation, 
and resolve, by God's grace, to devote themselves in 
body and soul to the service of our Lord. Is it, then, 
an object of earnest desire to your souls, to be the 
subjects of the Saviour's prayer? Could you have any 
hope of pardon, any assurance of grace and strength, 
any prospect of a glorious eternity, if you were ex- 
cluded from those divine intercessions ? Then let these 
words of your Redeemer sink deep into your hearts, 
" I pray not for the world." So long as you remain 
undistinguishable from the world of the ungodly, you 
can derive no comfort, because you can feel no assu- 
rance that our Lord intercedes for you; doubtless he 
does intercede for many who still sw^ell the ranks of an 
opposing world, and who will, ere long, desert those 
rebel forces, and take arms under their rightful sove- 



400 LECTURE I. 

reign, the captain of their salvation. But no individual 
there is justified in believing that he is one for whom 
the Saviour prays. If you would have this most im- 
portant point cleared up to the satisfaction and comfort 
of your own soul, there is no other way but that which 
God himself has commanded, *^ Come out, and be ye 
separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean 
thing; and I will receive you:" in other words, *^Come 
out and be ye separate" from those for whom your 
Saviour prays not. Let the line between you and them 
be plain, obvious, undeniable ; as much so now in your 
principles, your motives, and your conduct in time, as 
it will one day be in eternity, when that Hne, now 
almost imperceptible, shall have widened into a great, 
a fixed, an impassable gulf. 

Is this, by Divine grace, already the case with many 
among you, and although constrained to five in the 
world, can you say with an apostle, " The world is 
crucified unto me, and I unto the world ;" I desire not 
its trifling pleasures, I distrust its empty promises, I 
abhor its sinful practices, and " the life which I now live 
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave himself for me ?" Then have you 
the surest pledge that the Lord Jesus Christ prays for 
your keeping, for your sanctification, for your glorifica- 
tion. For this is the very argument which he makes 
Use of with his Divine Father that his prayer should be 
heard and answered ; and be assured that he prayed only 
for that which he had purchased ; and that if he have 
drawn yoii out of the world by the attraction of his 
cross, and have given you a far better and far holier in- 
heritance even now among the people of God, making 
their pleasures here to be yours, their Sanctifier and 



LECTURE I. 401 

their Saviour yours, then will he make their joys here- 
after to be yours, and their God, their heaven, to be yours 
also ; for he has pledged himself to " keep you from the 
evil," until he has built you up, and given you an inheri- 
tance among all them which are sanctified. 

This leads us, therefore, to the second point in our 
Lord's petitions ; that his heavenly Father should sanctify 
those whom he had promised to keep, "Sanctify them 
through thy truth." 

It is evident that those for whom our Lord first offered 
these petitions were, even when the petitions were made, 
both converted and sanctified. Yet this did not prevent 
our Lord from praying that they might be still further 
sanctified, from entreating that they might be carried on 
in hoHness, until they were perfected in happiness. Learn, 
then, from this, the necessity of growth in sanctification. 
Not to grow is to decay. It matters not what knowledge, 
what experience, what feeling of Divine things you pos- 
sess within you, even what inherent grace ; these will not 
keep you from the evil of the world, unless you are not 
only sanctified, but growing, advancing therein. There- 
fore are these petitions united. Holy Father, keep and 
sanctify. The surest method by which even God him- 
self keeps the believer, is by promoting his sanctification. 
How blessed an arrangement of Divine grace, that thai 
which God has made our duty, he should also make our 
safeguard and our happiness ! How merciful a provision 
of Divine love, that the very sanctification of the be- 
liever, which is elsewhere said to be the will of God con- 
cerning us, " This is the will of God, even our sanctifi- 
cation," is here shown to be entirely the work of God ; 
for our Lord Jesus distinctly seeks it of him by prayer, 
" Sanctify them through thy truth." 

34* 



402 LECTURE 1. 

Therefore, brethren, learn while you are constantly 
striving after higher degrees of holiness, to lay the mat- 
ter of youv daily sanctification faithfully and contentedly 
upon God in Christ Jesus. Acknowledge your own in- 
ability, cease from all dependence upon your own efforts, 
and rely simply and entirely on him who will perfect 
that which concerneth you, and having begun a good 
work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ ! 
Only bear in mind that your daily sanctification is to be 
instrumentally wrought out by the same means as your 
conversion was, viz. by the powder of God, and by the 
word of truth ; " Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy 
word is truth." This is not only affirmed by the scrip- 
ture before us, but corroborated by all scripture. So 
St. Peter, " As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk 
of the word, that ye may grow thereby." You never 
grow so rapidly and so strongly, as when your nourish- 
ment is drawn simply from the Divine word, by daily 
reading, daily meditation, daily prayer. While dwelfing 
on its commands the Spirit of God renders them efTec- 
tual to press your duties upon your soul — while dwelling 
upon its promises, to encourage your performance of 
those duties — while dwelling on the great and blessed 
doctrines, the same Divine Spirit sheds forth that light 
and warmth which, beaming from the cross, strengthen 
and purify, guide and sanctify, the affections and the 
heart., Thus he who wills your sanctification, while 
you are striving to effect it, himself '^ w^orketh in you 
to will and to do,^ and thus carries on and perfects that 
which he recommends and commands^ 

Lastly, we are briefly to consider our Lord's petition 
for the glorification of his people, " Father, I will that 
they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where 
I am ;: that they may behold my glory.^' 



LECTURE I. 403 

How beautifully, and how naturally, does each portion 
of this heavenly prayer succeed the other : they whom 
God has given, them he also keeps ; and they whom God 
has kept, them he also sanctifies, and they whom God 
has sanctified, them he also glorifies. 

As our Lord began the prayer with the endearing 
word " Father,'' so does he also conclude it ; the same 
sweet spirit of filial intercourse and filial love pervading 
every petition. " Father, I will that they also, whom 
thou hast given me, be with me where I am." It is a 
remarkable expression — " Father, I will." Who but 
God could with propriety have spoken thus to God. Yet 
there is nothing authoritative, nothing imperious here. 
It is rather the language of a dying testator, wilhng 
away possessions which were his own to give. I Will 
this to my people. I Will that they spend an eternity in 
my presence and glory: such is my love to them, that 
heaven will not content me unless they "be with me 
where I am." 

Christian brethren, let me ask you a solemn question, 
and one which you probably never asked yourselves. 
Are you as anxious to enjoy your Redeemer's company 
and society, as he unquestionably proves himself by this 
petition to be for the enjoyment of the company and 
society of his people ? His last thoughts on earth were 
occupied with the desire of meeting them again in 
heaven. Such a feeling was by no means confined to 
his disciples; it comes in that portion of the prayer 
which is expressly occupied with those " who shall be- 
lieve on him," and of these, yes of all these, and there- 
fore, if we are the children of God,, of us, even of us, did 
he declare, " I will that they also be with me where I am.'* 
As if the happiness of the Saviour would be incomplete, 
the travail of his so\A unsatisfied, if every member of 



404 LECTURE I. 

his beloved family were not with him, if even the young- 
est, weakest, feeblest, were not there. " I will that they 
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that 
they may behold my glory." Yes, my beloved brethren, 
the most spiritual among you here below, know little of I 
that glory which shall be revealed both to us, and in us ; 
we could not bear the sight, while clothed in these fleshly 
tabernacles; they must be laid down in the dust of 
which they are made ; this corruption must put on in- 
corruption, this mortal must put on immortality, before 
we shall be able to endure the vision of that, which shall 
one day constitute our highest happiness, and our eternal 
joy. Be much engaged, then, in fixing your thoughts and 
hearts on the Lord Jesus Christ, on all his abounding 
love, on all his tremendous sufferings. Nothing will, by 
God's grace, tend more to banish this world, its trifles, 
and its follies, from your memories and your hearts, than 
to have them thus occupied, thus filled. Nothing will, 
by the influence of the same grace, be so effectual in 
fitting you for that day, and for that place, and for 
that vision, which even now your Lord is beseeching 
his heavenly Father to prepare for you, while he 
is engaged with God the Holy Ghost in preparing you 
for it. Do you, then, to whom God hath in mercy 
given a taste for these things, meditate upon them, 
pray over them, and be continually occupied with them, 
bearing in mind that the time is short, that eternity is 
approaching, but that eternity itself will not be long 
enough to repair the loss of opportunities such as these, 
for now only is the accepted time, now only, to us, is 
the day to know the Lord Jesus Christ, to be con- 
formed to his image, obedient to his will, clothed with 
righteousness, and rendered meet to be with him where 
he is, and to behold and to partake of his glory. 



405 



SECOND EXPOSITORY LECTURE. 



St. John xviii. 8. 

" Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he ; if therefore ye 
seek me, let these go their way." 

In pursuance of the plan we proposed, of reviewing 
the series of our Lord's sufferings, from the Paschal 
Supper on the Thursday evening, to the Crucifixion on 
Friday noon, — for all were crowded into a single day 
of his mortal life, that day of humiliation, that day of 
glory ! — we are this morning to call your attention to 
the circumstances of the first scene of his final trials in 
the Garden of Gethsemane. 

That you may enter into the subject more fully, let me 
carry you back in imagination to that large upper room 
in the eastern division of Jerusalem, where our Lord, in 
company with the eleven disciples, had just finished the 
prayer upon which we commented in the last Lecture. 
The time which had been occupied by the lengthened 
discourse of the preceding chapters, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 
the prayer of the 17th, would bring the period of the 
departure of Jesus and his disciples from the city, to 
eleven or twelve o'clock at night. For though it is said 
at the close of the 14th chapter, " let us go hence," it is 
the opinion of the best harmonizers of scripture, that 



406 LECTURE II. 



they did not then depart from the house, but only made 
preparations for leaving it, probably by quitting the 
table. It says, indeed, expressly, at the opening of this 
chapter, " When Jesus had spoken these words, he went 
forth with his disciples," and, therefore, not before. The 
Garden of Gethsemane, to which they were about to bend 
their steps, lay on the eastern side of Jerusalem, across 
the valley or brook of Cedron, at the foot of the Mount 
of OUves, and distant from the city about three-fourths 
of an English mile. To this garden, as the evangelist 
acquaints us, our Lord was in the constant habit of re- 
sorting with his disciples, for the purpose, no doubt, of 
intimate communion with them, and of still more inti- 
mate communion with his God. But he was now going 
thither, for a widely diiferent purpose,— to bear that 
w^eight of sin which would have crushed the world. 

The evangelist, whom I intend exclusively to follow, 
omits all mention of the agony of our Divine Lord, be- 
cause it had been largely told by the other apostles, and 
it is the pecuHar character of St. John's Gospel to be 
highly supplementary, that is, to pass lightly over those 
things narrated in the other Gospels, and to dwell much 
upon all that they have omitted. It will be enough, 
therefore, for me to remind you of that most trying 
portion of your Redeemer's woes ; that season when he 
was sore amazed, and very heavy, and his soul exceed- 
ingly sorrowful even unto death ; when, in the intensity 
of mighty prayer, he fell upon the ground, crying, " O 
my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" 
when, in the extremity of mortal agony, "his sweat was, 
as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the 
ground;" of that hour when he, who had been the 
loudest in his protestations of fidelity, and when even 



LECTURE II. 407 

the dearest of his disciples, he who had leant on his 
breast while at supper that very night, in the closest in- 
timacy of friendship, were both of them unable to watch 
with him for a single hour ; and while their Lord was 
bleeding from the intensity of his agony, they, over- 
powered by fatigue and sorrow, were three times found 
asleep. , Surely this must be mentioned among the suf- 
ferings of our Lord ; for who can tell how deep an ad- 
ditional pang such conduct at such a season must have 
inflicted! And, brethren, what an additional stigma does 
it for ever fix upon man's affection and man's fidelity. 

If a peculiar curse has settled upon the one sex, be- 
cause in the Garden of Eden the woman sinned, says 
the apostle, " being first in the transgression ;" surely in 
the Garden of Gethsemane the mouth of the other sex 
has been for ever silenced; for if the first Adam was 
Jbeguiled by the woman, the second Adam was most 
certainly betrayed, denied, deserted, by the man. 

St. John resumes the narrative, soon after the omission 
of the agony, at that period when our Lord, coming for 
the last time to his slumbering disciples, inquires of 
them, — for it is probable that this should have been 
translated as an inquiry, and not a command, — " Do 
you sleep, even now, and take your rest?" "It is 
enough, the hour is come ; rise up, let us go ; lo ! he 
that betrayeth me is at hand." . Then it was, even while 
he yet spake, that Judas and his band drew near ; and 
as St. John tells us, in the 4th verse, " Jesus knowing 
all things that should come upon him went forth, and 
said unto them. Whom seek ye? They answered him, 
Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he.'^ 
What supernatural composure, what blessed meekness ; 
and after the agony of the Passion, what a holy calm of 



408 LECTURE 11. 

peace. How mercifully does God deal with us,' in thus 
always giving us grace equal to our day, or making 
our day equal to our grace ; never permitting our in- 
ward and our outward trials to come on simultaneously, - 
so as to overwhelm and crush us, but in mercy with- 
drawing the one before he pours forth on us the other. 
Our Lord had but just before, as we are told by St. 
Luke, been comforted by an angel sent from heaven, to 
strengthen him; and now, instead of shrinking from 
this dreaded hour, he voluntarily goes forth to meet its 
perils. How easy are outward trials, where there is 
inward peace. Get but the peace of God within your 
hearts, and, like your Lord, there will be no trial, no 
peril, no foe on earth, that you will shrink from going 
forth to meet, if the Lord call you to the conflict. 

No sooner did Jesus declare that it was he, than we 
read that "they went backward and fell to the ground." 
Doubtless this was to prove that all which followed, was 
of our Lord's own free will, that, " he gave his back to 
the smiters, and his cheek to them that^plucked off the 
hair." Little do the enemies of Jesus, little do even the 
dearest of his friends, yet know of the power of the 
word of Christ; " As soon as he said, I am he, they went 
backward, and fell to the ground." They required no 
stronger power to be exerted against them than the word 
of the Lord. How differently does the same voice, and 
even the same word, spoken by that voice, sound, accord- 
ing to the persons to whom it is addressed. Do you not 
remember, another time, when he said, " I am he," or, 
" It is I," and then immediately every fear in his disci- 
ples' hearts was hushed, and they received him into their 
vessel, and the ship was at the land whither they went ? 
Who can express the difference of the same words, 



LECTURE II. 409 

spoken by the same Saviour, to his enemies, or to his 
people! So shall it be at the end of the world, when 
the cry of the Bridegroom, " I am he," shall come upon 
the four winds, and sound from one end of heaven to the 
other : it shall be to every one of his children, as the 
Lamb's voice, the accents of tenderness and love; while 
to the whole world of the risen unbelievers, it shall be 
as the roaring of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, full of 
terror, dismay, and everlasting death. 

A second time our Lord asks the question, " Whom 
seek ye ? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth." Again 
he makes the same reply, but now accompanied by this 
affecting addition, " If, therefore, ye seek me, let these 
go their way. That the saying might be fulfilled which 
he spake, of them which thou gavest me, have I lost 
none." 

Even in the most trying moment of our Lord's ovi^n 
peril, w^hat care, what thoughtfulness, what affectionate 
consideration, for his disciples ! And is there no encou- 
ragement here for us, brethren ? Yes, truly, these little 
words are replete with consolations. Did our Lord thus 
stand between these bands of armed ruffians, and his 
poor, weak, trembling followers? then not a storm which 
blows upon the Chuxh, not a trouble which assails 
yourselves, but Christ is present, to stand between you 
and your enemies, and all that would otherwise over- 
whelm and ruin you, is borne by him alone. Again, 
does justice come and plead against you ? does it lecall 
sins unnumbered, for which you can make no compen- 
sation, and from the justly merited punishment of which 
you can discover no escape ? then behold your Lord 
again stepping forward, offering himself to justice in 
your stead, and again pleading, " Let these go their 

35 



410 LECTURE II. 

way ;" " ye seek me ;" for " I am he," who alone can 
satisfy, and who alone have satisfied, all and every de- 
mand which you can bring against my people. 

Thus is the scripture again and again fulfilled, as 
every succeeding generation of our Lord's believing peo- 
ple pass onward through a world of sins and trials, to a 
world of purity and peace, " Of them which thou gavest 
me, I have lost none ;" most mercifully manifested in 
part, every day, and at every period of the Christian's 
Hfe, but to be still more triumphantly, O, how trium- 
phantly declared, on that great day, when he shall stand 
before his Father, and say, " Behold, I and the children" 
— yea, all the children, — " which thou hast given me." 

" Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and 
smote the High Priest's servant, and cut oflf his right 
ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Then said 
Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath, for 
all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword ; 
the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not 
drink it V' There was almost more severity in the re- 
proof here given to Peter, than in that which our Lord 
is elsewhere recorded to have given to Judas. So true 
is it, that when Christ reproves, it is a mark of love. 
Thank -God, brethren, for your food, but thank him still 
more for your medicines. One hour of divine chasten- 
ing, will often in its eflfects outweigh a century even of 
spiritual prosperity. But if we mark our Lord's correc- 
tion of Peter, let us not overlook his own divine submis- 
sion, for he was himself at that vet-y moment under a 
far heavier chastening than all that he inflicted. " The 
cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink 
it ?" were the words with which he welcomed the first 
of that series of indignities and cruelties, which were to 



LECTURE II. 411 

end only in the grave. Here then, again, in his blessed 
example is strong consolation for ourselves. In all our 
trials, it matters nqt how^ bitter be the cup, if we have 
but the privilege of throwing in those two little words, 
" my Father," to sweeten it. Only know by the Spirit 
of adoption, that the cup is mixed with a Father's love, 
and presented to you by a Father's hand ; and where is 
the child of God who will refuse to drink it ? Impa- 
tience and rebellion are the very curse of crosses ; but 
fiUal love and submission turn the heaviest and the worst, 
into a real and substantial blessing. 

No sooner had our Lord thus marked his determina- 
tion to drink the cup which his heavenly Father had 
prepared, and to resign himself into the hands of his 
enemies, than we read, " Then they bound him, and led 
him away." 

This closes the first scene of our Redeemer's trial ; 
may he, by his divine Spirit, enable us so to occupy our- 
selves in meditating upon it, and upon the many impor- 
tant personal lessons to be derived from it, for which 
the few hints which have now been thrown out are only 
intended as mere suggestions, that our hearts may be 
brought nearer to himself, and strengthened, stablished, 
settled against every trial, and under every temptation, 
by the affecting instances of our Divine Master's love 
for his people, and by the review of all that he said, and 
all that he did, and all that he suffered, during his day 
of agony. 



412 



THIRD EXPOSITORY LECTURE. 

St. John xviii. 19. 

"The High Priest then asked Jesus of his disciples and of hia 
doctrine." 

No sooner had the captain and officers of the Jews 
taken our Lord, to which point we traced the history in 
our last Lecture, than they led him at once to Annas, 
w^hose house, we find from Josephus, was in that quar- 
ter of Jerusalem through which they must necessarily 
pass to the palace of Caiaphas the High Priest. 

This, probably, was entirely the act of the persons 
immediately engaged in arresting Christ, and not com- 
manded by their superiors, for we find it parenthetically 
stated in the 24th verse, that Annas had sent him on, 
bound as he had been in the Garden, at once to Caia- 
phas ; there is, therefore, no doubt that the whole of the 
examination recorded in this portion of the chapter took 
place in the palace, not of Annas, but of Caiaphas. 

As far as we can ascertain, this examination was a 
private examination before the High Priest only, and 
not before the Sanhedrim; that examination having 
been related at length in two of the other gospels, St. 
John, according to his usual custom, to which we have 
before referred, omitted it altogether. The reason, pro- 



LECTURE III. 413 

bably, for this double examination, was, that the hour 
when Jesus was taken was so early, being about two 
o'clock in the morning, that the Sanhedrim could not 
be called together, and therefore Caiaphas received him 
alone : for we are expressly told by Maimonides, that 
there was a law among the Jews that no trial should 
be commenced during the night, a regulation no doubt 
necessary, since their courts of justice usually met at 
daybreak, and one which, as the persecutors of Jesus 
throughout the whole of his different trials were very 
observant of ceremonial exactness, was not likely on 
the present occasion to have been infringed. 

" The High Priest then,'' says the evangehst, << asked 
Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine," intending to 
impute to him, as appears from the examination which 
took place afterwards, sedition in assembling his dis- 
ciples, and heresy in the doctrine which he taught 
them. Such, at least, w^ere the nominal charges ; the 
real offence which had excited all this enmity, was of 
a far different nature; but this has ever been the 
method adopted by the enemies of our Lord. Thus at 
one period of his life he was persecuted as a gluttonous 
man and a winebibber ; at another he is accused of 
sedition and heresy, then again of blaspheming the 
temple, and never until all these had failed, is the real 
charge brought forward, " because he made himself the 
Son of God." 

There will be consolation in this consideration to those 
among you who suffer, I will not say persecution, it is in 
general too strong a term, but opposition for the truth's 
sake. Be assured of this, that Satan is too cunning ever, 
if he can help it, to let you enjoy the comfort of knowing 
that you are really suffering for righteousness' sako. You 

35^ 



414 LECTURE III. 

will be condemned by some for your worldliness, by 
others for your pride, by others for your enthusiasm, by 
others for your want of judgment, by others for your 
inconsistencies ; but Satan will take care that the real 
reason, because you are a child of God, because you 
are a true follower of your Lord, shall never meet your 
ear. So it was in the days of the first Christian mar- 
tyrs — they were put to death as enemies of Caesar, and 
seditious; so it was in the days of the Protestant mar- 
tyrs, they were carried to the stake as despisers of the 
Church, and heretics; while, in both cases, the real 
head and front of their offending w^as, that they Uved 
too near the God of the Bible. It is matter of Christian 
experience that this is one of Satan's most favourite and 
most malignant devices, to persecute you simply because 
you are a real Christian, and then to take from you the 
consolation which the assurance of such a fact would 
infallibly bring, in the hour of trouble, to your soul. 

Perhaps, then, one of the reasons for which our Lord 
condescended to lie under the imputation of sedition 
and heresy, a destroyer of the temple, an ambitious 
man, who wished to make himself a king, and all the 
other charges of which he was as innocent as a new- 
born babe, was to sanctify every false charge which 
he well knew would so often be brought against, and 
afflict his brethren, and to give them the comfortable 
assurance that in this trial also, their Lord has gone be- 
fore, and that he, at least, would know how to strengthen, 
and support, and sympathize with them in their like 
hour of need. 

In his reply, we find our Lord taking no notice of the 
inquiry respecting his disciples, but confining himself 
simply to that which regarded his doctrine, and manner 



LECTURE III. 415 

of teaching. "Jesus answered him, 1 spake openly to 
the world : I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the 
tennple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret 
have I said nothing. Why askest thou nne? Ask thenti 
which heard nne what I have said unto them : behold, 
they know what I said." There were times during 
these examinations, in fact, whenever they were strictly 
judicial, as we shall see, when our Lord fulfilled the 
prophecy, " As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so 
he opened not his mouth;" and when he was arraigned 
as a guilty man, utterly refused to avow his innocence, 
and " answ^ered not a word," probably to mark the fact 
that he w^as suffering as the surety of a world of sinners, 
and therefore had no reason to give why judgment should 
not be passed upon him : for of all, and more than all, 
that he was ever charged wdth, his people had been 
guilty ; and all, and more than all, that could be laid on 
him, their sins had well deserved. But there were also 
times, and this was one, when he " w^itnessed a good 
confession," and declared that all the truths he had ever 
preached were open to the world, and would stand all 
tests that the inquiry, the opposition, the hatred of the 
world, could ever bring to bear upon them. What need 
have we of this divine wisdom of our Lord, to know 
when, to speak, and when to be silent, w^hen to declare 
openly for God, and when to bridle the tongue. Far 
less likely, brethren, are we to err on the side of "speak- 
ing openly to the w^orld," than of preserving a guilty 
silence on these great points. Remember, if God has 
intrusted lyou with his truth, that pearl of great price, 
he has given it you as a talent to improve, and not to 
bury, or lay up in a napkin. Doubtless you are " not 
to cast your pearls before swine ;" but be not too speedy 



416 LECTURE III. 

in thus denominating your fellow-sinners. At least make 
the experiment before you pronounce upon them, for 
many whom you in your wisdom, or in your cowardice, 
would think unworthy of one word of Christian counsel, 
you will, perhaps, hereafter find to have been among the 
sheep of the Redeemer's fold ; and you unquestionably 
neglect your Master's interests, if in going into society 
you withhold the truth from any to whom you have an 
opportunity of clearly and plainly stating it. St. Paul 
speaks of himself as a debtor, until he should pay away 
to others something of the riches with which God had 
intrusted him. It is a remarkable expression ; he says, 
" I long to see you, that I might impart unto you some 
spiritual gift;" and then continues with reference to this, 
*^ I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barba- 
rians, both to the wise and to the unwise." Thus 
should you feel, who have received the truth as it is 
in Jesus Christ ; that with regard to every society into 
which you are thrown, you are to go there as *' a 
debtor;" that you have wealth, to w^hich as children 
perhaps of the same family, they whom you meet wath, 
also have a claim ; you know not to whose heart God 
may carry home a word in season ; but this you know, 
that if you speak it, you have done your part; you have 
at least cleared your own conscience, nay, you have 
done more, you have imitated your divine Master, who 
passed not through the most barren field, without scat- 
tering around him the good seed ; and you must leave 
it to him, without whom neither is he that soweth any 
thing, nor he that watereth, to give the great aj;id blessed 
increase. 

In the account of the judicial proceedings, before the 
same High Priest, when all the Sanhedrim were ga- 



LECTURE III. 417 

thered together, at a late hour in the morning, omitted 
by St. John, because fully given in the 26th chapter, by 
St. Matthew, you will find that to every inquiry, our 
Lord answered nothing until the High Priest said, *' I 
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether 
thou be the Christ, the Son of God." This was the 
authorized legal method among the Jews, of putting a 
witness or criminal upon oath ; our Lord, without per- 
jury, could be no longer silent. It was in answer there- 
fore, to this, that he so solemnly replied, "lam ;" adding 
those words of awful import, which will no doubt be 
fearfully remembered by many throughout a long eter- 
nity, who were his hearers at that hour, " Hereafter 
shall ye sec the Son of man sitting on the right hand 
of powder, and coming in the clouds of heaven." " Then 
the High Priest rent his clothes ;" not, as might be ima- 
gined, in a sudden paroxysm of rage and anger, but as 
a solemn judicial act; for it ^vas ordained by the Jewish 
law, that when any criminal was convicted of blasphemy, 
the High Priest should rend his garment in a manner 
which was expressly prescribed. This, therefore, may 
be looked upon as the act, which, while it sealed the 
sentence of our Lord, sealed also the fate of his perse- 
cutors. They had now judicially pronounced him a 
blasphemer for assuming the title of the Son of God, 
and in return, he now solemnly summoned them before 
his judgment-seat, to answer for their rejection of his 
divinity, when he shall come in the clouds of heaven. 
Who can think without emotion, of that tribunal, where 
Caiaphas and the chief priests shall stand among the 
trembling criminals, and that despised Nazarene be the 
inexorable Judge ? Who can anticipate the hour w^hen 
he shall see Jesus sitting on the right hand of God, and 



418 LECTURE III. 

saying, " All power is given unto me, in heaven and in 
earth," without asking himself, Have I by faith acknow- 
ledged this nnan to be niy Saviour ? Ann I trusting in 
his great atonement? united to him now in love and 
holy obedience ? and am I able to say with the Church 
of old, if this day were the day of his return, and this 
hour the hour in which he should come in the clouds 
of heaven, " This is my beloved, and this is my friend ?*' 
Brethren, ask yourselves as in the presence of God, this 
solemn question, and may you receive an answer of peace 
unto your souls. 



419 



FOURTH EXPOSITORY LECTURE. 
St. John xviii. 38. 
** Pilate saith unto him, What is truth 1" 

After the private examination of our Lord Jesus 
Christ before Caiaphas, recorded by St. John, and the 
pubhc one before the Sanhedrim, which took place in 
the palace of the High Priest, and is recorded by the 
other evangeUsts, and which concluded with the solemn 
sentence of blasphemy pronounced against Jesus, nothing 
remained but to carry him to the Roman governor, to 
confirm the sentence already passed by Caiaphas. You 
will bear in mind that the Jewish law awarded imme- 
diate death as the punishment for blasphemy, and that, 
therefore, the natural step for his enraged persecutors 
would have been, to have carried Jesus forth, like Na- 
both of old, and have stoned him immediately at the 
conclusion of his trial. But times were now greatly 
changed; since Judaea had been in the hands of the 
Romans, the powers of the Sanhedrim had been so con- 
tracted, that it was necessary, before its mandates could 
be enforced, to obtain the aid of the civil power, who 
alone could carry it into effect, and to this, reference is 
made in the 31st verse of the chapter, where the Jews 
said to Pilate, " It is not lawful for us to put any man 



420 LECTURE IV. 

to death :" '' That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, 
signifying what death he should die." There is reference 
here, as you are no doubt aware, to our Lord's decla- 
ration, " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up ;" and again, 
" I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto me." Had our Lord been put to death immediately 
after his sentence had been passed in the Sanhedrim, 
which, although illegal, he might have been, as Stephen 
afterwards was, in a popular tumult, he would neces- 
sarily have been stoned, and thus his prediction would 
have been falsified, that he should be " lifted up from 
the earth ;" but by carrying him before the Roman go- 
vernor the Jews were unwittingly fulfiUing his oft re- 
peated prophecy, since nothing could more literally be 
termed a lifting up from the earth than crucifixion, the 
only capital punishment that Pilate could inflict. This, 
then, was the next object of the persecutors of our Lord, 
to obtain his condemnation from the Roman governor : 
accordingly we read in the 28th verse, " Then led they 
Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment; and it 
was early ; and they themselves went not into the judg- 
ment-hall, lest they should be defiled ; but that they might 
eat the Passover, Pilate then went out unto them." It is 
usually considered that there is more difficulty in recon- 
ciling the account of our Lord's examination before 
Pilate, as recorded by St. John, with his examination 
as recorded by the three other evangelists, than almost 
any other point in our Lord's history. We shall, there- 
fore, dwell a little upon the subject, that we may obtain 
a clear and intelligible view of a very important and 
interesting incident. 



LECTURE IV. 421 

First, as to the difficulties : 

It is distinctly stated by St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
that when Jesus stood before the governor, the chief 
priests and elders witnessed many things against him, 
but that he answered nothing. In St. John it is as dis- 
tinctly stated that they, never entered the judgment-hall, 
for fear of ceremonial defilement ; and further, that to 
every inquiry with respect to him, our Lord replied 
freely and unhesitatingly. 

Next, as to the solution : 

It appears that the examination recorded by St. John, 
differs in these details from the examination recorded 
by the other evangelists, just as might naturally have 
been expected, because it is a totally different transac- 
tion. To prove this, you need only compare the ac- 
counts in the 27th of St. Matthew and 15th of St. Mark 
with this in the 18th of St. John. You will find in the 
former, that the examination there recorded, took place 
when Pilate " was set down on the judgment-seat," 
while, if you carefully read this chapter, you will dis- 
cover that the examination here recorded, took place in 
some inner hall of justice, before Pilate ascended the 
tribunal, therefore, when he was not *' set down on the 
judgment-seat." Again, we find that the chief priests 
and Jews were never present during any period of this 
examination, for it is said in the 29th verse, " Pilate then 
went out unto them ;" in the 33d verse that he returned 
again into the judgment-hall to Jesus ; in the 38th that 
he again left Jesus, and went out in the vain hope of 
pacifying the people ; in the 4th verse of the following 
chapter, that he took Jesus out with him and showed 
him to the multitude in the purple robe and the crown 
of thorns ; then, after once more taking Jesus back 

36 



422 LECTURE IV. 

again, and interrogating him privately upon the accu- 
sation, that, " he had made himself the Son of God," 
Pilate comes forth, in the 13th verse, and for the first 
time " sat down in the judgment-seat in a place called 
the Pavement." 

Now, therefore, for the first time, Pilate proceeds in 
his judicial character to try our Lord ; and this change 
both of place and intention, this proof that Pilate was 
now about to do what he had not before done, is dis- 
tinctly marked by the mention of " the pavement," for 
" the tribunals of the Roman magistrates were placed 
in the midst of an elevated area, the floor of which, at 
this period of their history, commonly consisted of orna- 
mental pavement. Mosaic or tessellated, of which so 
many specimens still continue to be found." And this, 
as historians tell us, was not only the caae in Rome, 
but carefully imitated in all its provinces and depen- 
dencies. 

The accounts which the other evangehsts give of our 
Lord's examination by Pilate, refer to this precise pe- 
riod when he had " sat down on the pavement," or, 
was actually upon the tribunal. St. John, therefore, 
as you will see by the following narrative after the 13th 
verse of the 19th chapter which I have already quoted, 
does not record a single incident of the public examina- 
tion, but says at once, that Pilate dehvered Jesus unto 
them to be crucified* Thus omitting all that took place 
after Pilate had sat down on the open tribunal before 
the chief priests and elders, that having been already so 
largely told ; and confining himself strictly to the pri- 
vate, or extra-judicial examination which preceded it, 
of which no mention whatever had been made by any 
other evangelist* 



LECTURE IV. 423 

Having thus, perhaps at the cost of too large a por- 
tion of the httle time allotted, endeavoured to clear up 
a difficulty which, while it may have perplexed many, 
may have been overlooked by more, let us proceed to 
consider some of the most interesting points in this exa- 
mination of our divine Master. 

By the first inquiry which Pilate made of our Lord, 
" Art thou the King of the Jews?" one thing is obvious, 
that all Pilate's fears were the fears of a politician ; he 
looked at our Lord as a pretender to the throne; he 
thought of the reckoning to which he might himself be 
called at Rome if such a man escaped ; and his chief 
anxiety was to determine this one point. 

How admirably adapted was our Lord's reply, at 
least to set this at rest for ever, and to discover to 
Pilate his own folly and credulity. " Sayest thou this 
thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me ?" If of 
thyself, what folly, to believe that I, thus poor, deserted, 
and alone, should shake the throne of the Caesars. If 
others told it thee, what credulity in thee to credit ; or 
not crediting, what cruelty thus to persecute. 

Pilate, doubtless ashamed of any share in so weak, 
or so wicked an invention, at once declines the author- 
ship of the accusation, declares that not being a Jew, 
he knows nothing of the business beyond what others 
told him, and yet concludes by asking, " What hast thou 
done ?' " Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this 
world : if my kingdom were of this world, then would 
my servants fight, that I should not be deUvered to the 
Jews : but now is my kingdom not from hence." Thus 
far our Lord condescends to gratify the curiosity, or 
allay the fears of the Roman governor. If I am a king, 
still may Csesar sleep in peace upon his throne, for " my 



424 LECTURE IV. 

kingdom is not of this world." Would that every fol- 
lower of the Lord Jesus might bear this declaration in- 
scribed upon his heart for ever. 

Brethren, are you his followers, and do the riches, 
the pleasures, the honours of the world, still possess 
great and powerful attractions for you ? then know that 
your Master's kingdom is not of this world : and think 
you that he who could not tolerate a worldly kingdom, 
can tolerate a worldly servant ? No ! either you or he 
must greatly change, before the servant can be as his 
Master, the disciple as his Lord. *' Pilate, therefore, 
said unto him. Art thou a king then? Jesus answered. 
Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, 
and for this cause came I into the world, that I should 
bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the 
truth heareth my voice." 

Yes, blessed be God, Christ is indeed a King, and 
wherever he gathers a people, there he estabhshes a 
kingdom ; there his word is received and his laws are 
obeyed, and there he undertakes the security, and the 
welfare, and the happiness of his subjects. Brethren, it 
is a blessed thing to Hve even here, the subjects of such 
a King as Jesus. For it brings with it an assurance of 
strengthen weakness, of support in sorrow, of peace in 
death. Have you never yet acknowledged him as your 
King? Be assured, then, that where he is no King, 
there he is no Saviour. That only where he rules, he 
sanctifies and saves. For he is the Author of eternal 
salvation only to them that obey him. But where he is 
really received as a King, there, in that breast, will his 
rule be indeed a rule of power, and a rule of love. Do 
temptations assail you? you have a King w^ho will 
vanquish them ; do sorrows and afflictions burden 



LECTURE IV. 425 

you? you have a King who will bear them; do the 
powers of darkness trouble you, you have a King who 
will scatter them ; only continually draw near to this 
King ; think what a privilege it is to have such a Sove- 
reign, and such a throne of grace open to you ; be a 
daily suitor at his feet ; do nothing without him ; " cast 
all your care upon him,'* for be well assured, that " he 
careth for you." 

Pilate saith unto him, ** What is truth?" and having 
disdainfully and contemptuously asked the question, as 
though he had said, Do you, a poor, ignorant, perse- 
cuted man, profess to know the truth ? what is this 
mighty truth of which you predicate so largely ? with- 
out waiting for a reply, which he never appears to have 
sought, goes forth again to bear a final and most 
solemn testimony to the perfect innocency of our Lord, 
" I find in him no fault at all." And why was it neces- 
sary that Pilate should thus speak? To prove even 
from the lips of the enemies, of the murderers of Jesus, 
that his was a perfect, an unspotted sacrifice, that he 
was indeed, " the Lamb without blemish and without 
spot." 

Let us then, brethren, dwell for a moment upon 
Pilate's unanswered question, " What is truth ?" There 
can be but one reply, be it what it may ; for though 
there are ten thousand shades and degrees of error, 
there can be none in truth ; truth is indivisible, and can 
be but one. If, then, the word of God be true, this is 
truth eternal, as well as life eternal, " to know the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent." For 
this, then, brethren, sacrifice, and be content to sacri- 
fice, every thing. Nothing will sustain you in a dying 
hour, nothing will support you upon a dying bed, but 

36* 



426 LECTURE IV. 

truth. Be not, then, content to live upon that on which 
you cannot die. There may be much indistinctness in 
the mind, something even of error ; but if the truth be 
there, if the scriptural knowledge of God in Christ 
Jesus be the one great influencing motive there, Jesus 
will himself be there as a Prophet, Priest, and a King, 
and all will be peace. Well said the wise man, " buy 
the truth, and sell it not ;" search for it in God's word 
as for a hidden treasure, go nowhere where you cannot 
hear it faithfully delivered ; when you hear it, hear it 
with constant, fervent prayer for a blessing ; when you 
have received it, resolve in God's grace, faithfully, reso- 
lutely, constantly, to act upon it. So the peace of God, 
which invariably, sooner or later, accompanies the 
truth of God, and which passeth all understanding, shall 
keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 



427 



FIFTH EXPOSITORY LECTURE. 



St. John xix. 12. 

" And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him ; but the Jews 
cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's 
friend." 

Pilate having publicly and unreservedly proclaimed 
the innocence of our Lord in that remarkable speech to 
which we alluded in the last exposition, ^^ I find in him 
no fault at all," appears to have been extremely anxious 
to procure his deliverance. For this purpose, he first 
reminds the Jews of their annual custom of obtaining 
from him the release of a prisoner during the Passover ; 
and puts it to them, to consider whether it would not 
be well to exercise this mercy of theirs on behalf of 
Jesus. When this contrivance fails, he next imagines 
that by appearing to agree with them in the propriety 
of a lesser punishment of Christ he may preserve him 
from the greater ; for this purpose, apparently, and not 
from any gratuitous feelings of cruelty, Pilate scourges 
Jesus, and allows the soldiers to dress him in mockery 
with the purple robe, and to put on him the crown of 



428 LECTURE V. 

thorns, and then brings him forth to the people, saying, 
" Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know 
that I find no fault in him." Hoping that they would 
consider him now sufficiently punished, and accede to 
his release. 

Miserable temporizer ! If he had found no fault in 
him, why permit him to be thus wantonly insulted, thus 
cruelly tormented ? The fact is, for we see it through- 
out every feature and lineament of Pilate's character,^ 
that he would have been the friend of Christ if he could 
have been at no sacrifice of popularity, or self-inte- 
rest ; he would have liberated him, for his conscience 
told him that he ought to do so, but he feared the people, 
and therefore hoped by taking a middle course, to satisfy 
his conscience, to please the people, and to save Jesus. 
Remember, then, brethren, it was not open animosity, 
not undisguised and reckless hostility, but this middle 
course, this temporizing policy, which placed the crown 
of thorns upon the Saviour's head. Had Pilate been a 
bold, bad man, he would at once have given way to the 
dictates of self-interest, and have condemned the inno* 
cent Jesus upon the first application of his enemies. 
And though Jesus would in that case have been hurried 
from the tribunal to the cross, he would have escaped 
the purple robe, and the crown of thorns. Had Pilate 
on the other hand been an honest and upright man, he 
would not '' have sought to release him," as v/e are ex- 
pressly told he did in the text, but would have instantly 
and at all hazards have set him free. But Pilate was 
neither bad and bold, nor honest and upright; his cha* 
racter is often much imisunderstood, and he is looked 
upon by many as a blood-thirsty judge, anxious to tor- 



LECTURE V. 429 

ture, and not unwilling to condemn his prisoner. Yet 
this was certainly not his character. There was, in- 
deed, as far as we can see, nothing remarkable in Pilate; 
he was one of the most common characters to be met 
with in passing through life ; a timid, time-serving man, 
with just conscience enough to make himself uncomfort- 
able, and with just integrity enough to ruin the best of 
causes, and even to increase, as he obviously did, the 
sufferings of him whom he desired to save. There are 
many and most valuable lessons to be learnt from this 
view of Pilate's character ; I can but hint at them, and 
leave you to follow them out in your own reflections. 

I. You may learn from it, how little, how less than 
little, Christ and his people have ever profited by human 
policy and carnal friends. Nothing could have appeared 
more hopeful than Pilate's scheme for the Hberation of 
Jesus, nothing was more detrimental to the divine Suf- 
ferer. We believe that in all ages, Christ and his fol- 
lowers have been more injured by weak defenders, than 
by avowed enemies. That while the open blasphemer 
treads under foot the blood of the covenant, counting it 
an unholy thing; weak, temporizing, worldly friends, 
again and again place the crown of thorns upon the 
Saviour's head, and hold him forth once more to the 
mocking and derision of the world. 

II. You may learn from Pilate, that though you may 
acknowledge a duty, and even make a conscience of it, 
and take some little pains in its performance, for all this 
he evidently did, it will avail nothing before God, unless 
you strive to the very utmost, and if need be, at the loss 
of reputation, power, place, and profit, to carry it into 
effect. Pilate thought well of Christ and spake well of 



430 LECTURE V. 

him, for he openly avowed his conviction of his inno- 
cency. What then was wanting ? He did not act well 
for Christ. This alone was wanting; but it marred 
and ruined all the rest. How many are there who will 
take every step that Pilate took, and just stop where 
Pilate stopped, the very moment that self is to be de- 
nied, or any worldly advantage given up, or even 
risked for Christ. 

III. Yet further, another lesson you may learn from 
Pilate's conduct, that it is not only difficult, but abso- 
lutely impossible, to follow the convictions of conscience 
firmly, and the guidings of divine light faithfully, with- 
out being careful to keep only a loose hold of all 
worldly enjoyments, and worldly interests, and espe- 
cially upon worldly popularity. More persons in so- 
ciety make shipwreck of a good conscience from this 
temptation, popularity, the desire of obtaining the 
suffrages and good opinion of all parties, and all 
people with whom they converse, than any other. It 
was this which especially ensnared Pilate. While he 
conversed with our Lord he felt so deeply interested in 
his case, that he resolved upon releasing him ; when he 
went out again to the Jews, he felt so strongly the value 
of their good opinion that he resolved to destroy him. 
Then at his next interview with Christ, the influence 
of the present Jesus was stronger than the fear of the 
absent Jews ; until at last the dread of not being con- 
sidered Caesar's friend, a fresh feature in the case, a 
new party to be satisfied, resolves the question, and 
this weak and vacillating man, after doubting for hours, 
as it appears, between an obvious duty, and an apparent 
interest, decides, as in all such cases the temporizer 



LECTURE V. 431 

does decide, by serving, as he believes, himself, and by 
sacrificing the Saviour. 

Brethren, aim at and pray for, decision of character, 
especially in religion. There is nothing so ruinous to 
any course as half measures adopted from timidity, 
never acted heartily upon, and discarded at length 
from irresolution or self-interest. Learn to be indif- 
ferent to the opinion of an ungodly v^orld upon all points 
affecting your souPs best interests and your Saviour's 
honour. Act firmly upon present duties, never letting 
the future exercise any control, where the present path 
is plain, and your course as a child of God undoubted ; 
always bearing in mind the well-known, but much- 
neglected truth, that " duties are ours, events are God's." 

And now for a moment observe a new ingredient 
thrown into our Lord's cup of sorrow. We allude to 
the decision of the multitude when directed to choose 
between Jesus and Barabbas, " Then cried they all 
again, saying, not this man, but Barabbas."' It is im- 
possible not to see how much of feehng is conveyed in 
the brief, but striking comment of the apostle upon this 
act of the persecutors of our Lord ; he simply adds, 
'' Now Barabbas was a robber." Surely, if our divine 
Master was tried in all points like as we are, he could 
not have been indifferent to this heartless ingratitude, 
on the part of those, some at least of whom, in all 
probability had been cured by his mercy, or fed by his 
bounty, and yet joined in the coarse and brutal cry, 
" Not this man, but Barabbas." 

Brethren, it was doubtless to sanctify to you, the 
people of God, the peculiar trial to which you are 
sometimes subjected of being worse esteemed than 



432 LECTURE V. 

others, who are far less deserving, that your Saviour 
suffered this; to teach you to bear in mind that salutary 
truth, ** The w^orld will love its own, but because ye are 
not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the 
world, therefore the world hateth you." You have, 
then, no cause for sorrow w^hen the world exerts its 
unquestionable prerogative, prefers Barabbas, loves its 
own, and passes over you. Would that I could add, 
that you have equal cause of gratulation when no such 
preference is shown; when the world itself looks on you 
with complacency ; but alas, like him of old, who when 
the multitude applauded, asked what he had done amiss ; 
the Christian should then rather retire into his own 
heart, and examine himself in the presence of God, and 
see whether there be not something of inconsistency, 
something unworthy of his holy caUing, something 
unlike the conduct of his divine Master, which accounts 
for his enjoying countenance and favour, where his 
Lord would at once be banished and despised. " The 
world will love its own," but none beside. 

And might there not be another lesson in this new 
trial of the Saviour? to sanctify to his people their dis- 
appointments in deliverance from trials or from troubles. 
Speaking after the fashion of men, we should have said, 
Does the governor interfere for Jesus? then surely he 
will be released. There are many times when your 
deliverances also from trials, from sickness, from 
affliction, will appear as certain, and yet never be 
realized. It is good even in these things, even in dis- 
appointments, to be able to trace the print of your 
Saviour's feet; to know, that let the path of trial be 
what it will, in which you are called to walk, he has 



LECTURE V. 433 

once preceded you, and is still ready to accompany 
you, to support you by his example, and to cheer you 
with his presence. 

One word only, in conclusion, upon the terms in 
which Pilate presented our Lord to the populace, when 
anxiously engaged in endeavouring to save his life. 
" Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, 
and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them. Be- 
hold the man !" 

We apprehend the meaning of the words was this, 
* Behold the man whom you fear will make himself 
your King ; he cannot protect himself from outrage and 
mockery ; is there any danger lest he should shake the 
throne of the Caesars ? Be satisfied, and consent to his 
release; he is a worthy subject of derision, but can 
never be the object of apprehension to any human being.' 
Brethren, we also would say to you, " Behold the man/' 
but with what widely diflferent intentions ! Behold him 
as he then was ; in the very depth of his humiliation, 
the reedy sceptre of imaginary monarchy, the purple 
robe of mxOckery, the crown of cruelty; and then re- 
member, that this was all for you, as much individually 
for you, if you are among the number of his believing 
people, as if no other soul than yours had needed cleans- 
ing, no other human being but yourself required a par- 
don. Again, " Behold the man ;" the selfsame man as 
he now is, standing at the right hand of God, " ever 
living to make intercession ;" and then remember, this 
also is for you ; as much for you as if your prayers, 
and yours alone, required to be presented at that throne, 
amidst the incense of a Saviour's merits ; as much for 

37 



434 LECTURE V. 

you as if none other sinner but yourself needed an Inter- 
cessor there. 

Once more, " Behold the man ;" but as he soon shall 
be, vested in all his majesty, and coming in the clouds 
of heaven. And yet again for you ; for not more cer- 
tainly did he w^ear that crown of thorns for you, not 
more surely does he now intercede for you, than that he 
shall thus one day come to receive you to himself, to 
make you the beholder of his glory, the inheritor of his 
kingdom, the partaker of his throne. 



435 



SIXTH EXPOSITORY LECTURE. 



St. John xix. 17. 

" And he bearing his cross went forth." 

We have now reviewed the greater portion of the 
instructive particulars of the last day of the mortal hfe 
of our Lord and Saviour, as they are recorded by St. 
John. In this review we have studiously avoided dwell- 
ing upon those points in the history which were likely to 
affect the natural feelings of the heart, and have con- 
fined ourselves to those particulars from which some 
useful, spiritual, or practical lesson might be deduced. 
We shall endeavour to adhere to the same plan in the 
expositions which still remain, in which we purpose to 
consider, to-day, our Lord on the cross ; to-morrow in 
the sepulchre; and on Sunday, as rising triumphantly 
the Conqueror of death and the grave ; and may his 
Holy Spirit be present to bless and prosper the word 
spoken, that its manifold imperfections may not preju- 
dice the solemn subjects which it desires to impress 
upon your hearts. 

We have already seen the vacillations of Pilate, so 
strikingly manifested during the whole examination of 
our Lord, and at last brought to a conclusion by the 



436 LECTURE VI. 

terrifying clamour of the people, who as we are told, 
Luke 23, " were instant with loud voices, requiring that 
he might be crucified. And the voices of them, and 
of the chief priests, prevailed." " Then deUvered he 
him, therefore, unto them to be crucified. And they 
took Jesus, and led him away. And he, bearing his 
cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, 
which is called in the Hebrew, Golgotha, where they 
crucified him, and two other with him, on either side 
one, and Jesus in the midst." 

The other evangelists having dwelt upon all the heart- 
rending particulars of this dreadful scene, St. John, ac- 
cording to his usual custom, despatches it thus briefly. 
And yet what lengthened detail could have told, what 
narrative have done justice to the lengthened horrors 
of that hour, every moment of which came laden 
with fresh anguish to the meek and lowly Saviour. It 
was, says St. John, ^^ about the sixth hour," when Pilate 
delivered him to be crucified ; answering, therefore, to 
our twelve o'clock at noon ; and when w^e consider the 
manner in which the preceding twelve hours had been 
passed by our Lord, in one succession of dreadful suf- 
ferings, it excites the most unfeigned astonishment that 
that weak mortal frame of his could have endured so 
long. From the time, between eleven and twelve 
o'clock on the preceding night, that Christ had left the 
supper-room with his disciples, it had been one con- 
tinued season of excitement and agony. From that tre- 
mendous scene in Gethsemane, in which, oppressed 
by the weight of the sins of the whole world, he had 
sunk overwhelmed wdth agony, he had been dragged 
before the High Priest bound as a malefactor ; thence 
he had been carried before the Sanhedrim, to be again 



LECTURE VL 437 

questioned and insulted ; then before the Roman Gover- 
nor, where, after another private examination, he v^as 
scourged, and arrayed in purple, and crowned with 
thorns ; then sent to Herod, where the same contu- 
melious treatment was again inflicted, and from him 
driven back again to Pilate, to be officially examined 
and condemned; and all this amidst the scoffs and jeers, 
the hootings and the clamour, the smitings upon the 
head and face, the " shame and spitting," of an infuriated 
multitude. Yet sad and painful as they were, even these 
things were not alone; all the finer feehngs of his human 
nature were outraged by the denial of one friend, and the 
desertion of almost all ; at the very time too, the hour, 
of affliction, when the feelings are most sensitive and 
most acute, and when the affection of one truly sympa- 
thizing friend outweighs the malice of a host of enemies. 
This solace was denied to him who loved as man never 
had loved, and therefore must have suffered, even from 
this peculiar portion of his trials, as never man either 
before, or since, has suffered^ Well might the prophet 
say, " Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto 
my sorrow." Yet worn out with suflfering, and wearied 
even unto death, by twelve such hours of agony, our 
Lord is led away to be crucified, ^' bearing his cross." 
It is true that another evangelist tells us^ that Cimon, a 
Cyrenian, was compelled to aid him in this heavy trial, 
probably by bearing the lower end of the cross after 
Jesus ; but it is obvious that he himself was at least a 
participator in this cruel labour, or the word of God 
would not have so expressly mentioned it. Let us then 
in imagination, follow our divine Master, thus toiling up 
the hill of Calvary, wearied and faint, beneath the heat 
of a mid-day sun, and bearing a burden which would at 

37* 



438 LECTURE VI. 

any time oppress the strongest man ; but let us not be 
content unless we gather lessons as we go. 

Learn, then, brethren, that your heavenly Father 
sometimes sees good in the treatment of his spiritual 
children, as here in the treatment of the only-begot- 
ten Son, to let great trials and great weakness meet 
together ; to lay on crosses at those very moments when 
we appear the most unfit to bear them ; to permit wave 
to follow wave in such quick and terrible succession, 
that the eye of faith grows dim, and even the undying 
flame of the Christian's lamp is flickering in the socket. 
If such a season ever visit you, remember there is One 
to whom even this case is no new case; One upon whom 
his cross was laid when he was weak, even to faintness, 
and yet of whom we are told, that without one repining, 
one reproachful word, " He went forth bearing his 
cross." He cannot, then, although now in heaven, ever 
forget that hour on earth, and never does he see a weak 
and fainting sufferer, upon whom fresh trials are accu- 
mulating, and fresh crosses laid, without calling to mind 
that heavy cross, that toilsome journey up Mount Cal- 
vary, or without stretching forth a hand to help and 
succour him. How merciful is it of our heavenly Fa- 
ther, that there is not that sorrow in life, that peculiar 
state of trial, that bitterness of anguish, from which the 
believer can look upwards to the throne of grace, with- 
out beholding one beside that thrond to whom that sor- 
row, trial, bitterness, are all experimentally well known. 

At length the summit of the mount is reached, and 
the assembled thousands who have poured forth from 
the intensely crowded city are hushed in silence, while 
the last sad scene is acting, and the Saviour nailing to 
the accursed tree. We will not dwell on those par- 



LECTURE VI. 439 

ticulars upon which the apostle whom we follow, dwells 
not. He is content to say, " There they crucified him." 
And doubtless while he wrote the words, every feature 
of the dreadful scene, the savage soldiery, the infuriate 
priesthood, the maddened populace, were all again as 
freshly impressed upon his heart, and every curse, and 
scoff, and execration, again rang as loud and sharply in 
his ear, as when he witnessed all, and stood on Calvary. 
Thankful must he have been, that he, the beloved apos- 
tle, was not selected to chronicle the details of all these 
horrors. It was permitted to him, perhaps in mercy to 
the peculiar tenderness of his disposition and love for 
his divine Master, to pass over the narrative of the 
crucifixion in a single word, and to leave to other pens 
those taunts, " He saved others, himself he cannot save," 
" If he be the King of the Jews let him come down now 
from the cross, and we will believe him," which priests, 
and rulers, and malefactors, in that hour of suffering 
cast in the teeth of his beloved Master, and which we 
cannot read this day without feeling the burning flush 
of shame and indignation. 

There are those who delight to argue upon the pos- 
sibility of a God of mercy finding some easier expiation 
for the sins of men, than the blood of the only-begotten 
Son of God. To the humble Christian this admits not 
of an argument. It is enough for him, that St. John 
has told him that the Saviour died. He needs no more 
to convince him that nothing short of death, death of 
the Son of God, death under its most dreadful and ap- 
palling form, could expiate our sins, or make atonement 
for our souls. Each nail, as it was driven through the 
hands and feet of the suffering Saviour, corroborated 
what the scripture of truth had long since told, ^' With- 



440 LECTURE VI. 

out shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin/' We 
know not which lesson is preached most loudly from 
the cross of Christ, the infinite love of Jesus which could 
willingly endure so great a torment, or the appalHng 
depth of sin which could require so vast an expiation ! 
But this is certain, that if you can thus, as it were, 
stand on the summit of Mount Calvary, and looking full 
upon the cross, and upon him who hangs upon it, still 
nurture in your heart one cherished lust, still think in- 
differently of one favourite sin, which sent that innocent 
sufferer to that accursed hour of torture, we must say 
to you in the language of the apostle, " There remaineth 
no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking- 
for of judgment and fiery indignation." For if this 
miracle of love touch not the heart, all other miracles 
must be hopeless ; he whose rebellious soul is not sub- 
dued by the thought that the crucified Redeemer was 
crucified for him ; he who can see those arms stretched 
forth upon the cross, and know that they were thus 
stretched forth that they might embrace and succour 
him, and yet experience no feeHng of gratitude, no sor- 
row for sin, no love for such a Saviour, no desire for 
his salvation, may well look to be spoken to in other 
language than that of invitation ; or if he be eventually 
saved, must, as the apostle says, be saved as by fire ; 
called in the seven times heated furnace of domestic 
misery, or of personal affliction and suflfering. 

We pass over the refusal of Pilate to alter the in- 
scription which he had written upon the cross, " This 
is the King of the Jews ;" a refusal so much at variance 
with his inconstant nature, that it distinctly marks the 
providential interference of our God, who would thus 
publish to the world an eternal truth, even by the in- 
strumentality of that truth's greatest enemies. 



LECTURE VI. 441 

We pause, not to notice that remarkable fulfilment of 
minute prophecy, when the four soldiers who crucified 
Jesus, " parted his garments among them, and for his 
vesture," " without seam woven from the top through- 
out," *' did they cast lots ;" and we call your attention 
to the next improving incident in this most awful scene. 
*' Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, 
and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and 
Mary Magdalene." Another evangelist expressly tells 
us, that these pious women were looking upon him ; and 
may we not believe, since it was deemed of sufficient 
importance to form part of the Psalmist's prophecy of 
the trials of this day, that his enemies should " stand 
staring and looking upon him ;" so it was also recorded 
as among the mercies of this day, that there was yet a 
little band of friends to *' look upon him," with an eye 
of pity and of love. Many a scornful and a hateful 
look had the Saviour borne that morning. Who will 
imagine that these looks of deep and tender sympathy 
were not sweet to him ? No, we cannot but believe that 
if there were any thing of human consolation in that 
dark hour which came with healing to the Saviour's 
heart, it came from the looks of those holy women who 
had followed him from Galilee, and of that one disciple, 
who appears never to have fled, never to have forsaken 
him, but to have been in the garden, in the palace of 
the high priest, at the foot of the cross, and at the open- 
ing of the sepulchre. " When Jesus, therefore, saw his 
mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, 
he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then 
saith he to the disciple, behold thy mother ! And from 
that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." In 
the extremity of his own anguish, Christ thought of her 



442 LECTURE VI. 

who had once watched at his cradle, as she was now 
watching at his cross ; and by this act, he for ever 
consecrated the duties of the relationship between the 
mother and the son, as some of the dearest and the 
closest on this side heaven. 

If there be one ungrateful child in this assembly, one 
who in the declining years of a parent, is living unmind- 
ful of the mother's care which nurtured, and the mother's 
love which blessed his infancy ; if there be one child of 
godly parents here, who has suffered them to drop into 
their graves, neglected and dishonoured, deprived of the 
heartfelt satisfaction of enjoying one fruit of all their 
efforts, prayers, and tears : or, if there be one, living 
himself in affluence or comfort, and suffering the later 
years.of his parents to be spent in penury and wretch- 
edness; let that hard-hearted child be this day m^elted 
by the spectacle of a Saviour's love ; let him bid the 
stagnant waters of affection flow ; let him, ere it be too 
late, make some slight return, alas ! how slight it now 
must be, for all his early blessings ; but above all, let him 
leave this house of God to-day, heart-stricken for that 
sin, and smiting upon his breast, and saying, " God, be 
merciful to me a sinner." 

But who can worthily appreciate the extent of filial 
affection which the Saviour manifested at that awful 
hour ? It is impossible. It would require us to be par- 
takers of the Redeemer's sufferings, before we could 
conceive aright of this most touching instance of the 
Redeemer's filial love. One other lesson may, however, 
still be taught us by it ; that if our Lord, even in this 
extremity of his agony, bleeding at every pore, burning 
with an unquenchable thirst, could still think of, and 
provide for, even the temporal necessities of his mother. 



LECTURE VI. 443 

then who will for a moment fear that now, on the throne 
of his glory, where he hungers no more, neither thirsts 
any more, and has no wants, no pains, no thoughts of 
self, he should ever, by any possibility, be regardless of 
the necessities, whether temporal or spiritual, of his 
people. For, has he not said, " Whosoever shall do 
the will of my Father, which is in heaven, the same is 
my brother, and sister, and mother." Is there, then, a 
sinner here who can suppose himself forgotten 1 or who, 
under any circumstances, will ever doubt again, that 
he has a merciful High Priest who is touched with the 
feeling of all his infirmities, since he has heard these 
messages of mercy, even from the cross, ** Mother, be- 
hold thy son." " Son, behold thy mother." 

Little more is recorded by the beloved apostle after 
this touching incident. Others have told us that Christ 
'^ refused the wine and myrrh, usually given in mercy to 
stupify the sufferer in this most cruel death. St. John 
tells us, that he received the vinegar, the common drink 
of the Roman soldiery, offered him no doubt in mockery, 
but accepted, that no single word of prophecy should 
be left unfulfilled ; for that had long before declared, 
" In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." 

After this, the only incident recorded by St. John, is 
this brief description of the dying moment, "When 
Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said. It is 
finished; and he bowed his head, and gave up the 
ghost." Literally he dismissed his spirit; for nothing 
more remained to be performed. Every prophecy, 
even to the most minute and circumstantial, had been 
fulfilled; every type had now received its antitype ; but 
more, far more than this, a world's redemption was 
wrought out, a perfect righteousness brought in, and 
God and man were reconciled. 



444 LECTURE VI. 

It was of this, no doubt, above and beyond all other, 
that the Saviour spake, when he uttered that loud and 
piercing cry, " It is finished." The great work is for 
ever consummated, the everlasting gates are hfted up, a 
world of sinners may enter in. It is of this, then,, 
brethren, that we would speak during the few moments 
that remain. In these mysterious words, read the 
nature and the tenor of our commission as ministers of 
the everlasting Gospel. We proclaim to you a work 
completed, a redemption finished. We do not now ask 
you to make atonement for the sins of your past life, 
we do not ask you to propitiate an offended God, to 
satisfy his justice, to deserve his love; all this was done 
on Calvary. All this, it was utterly impossible for you 
to do; but why do I say for you? it was as impracti- 
cable for the highest archangel who stands at God's 
right hand, as for the vilest sinner among ourselves : 
that angel's blood, could he have offered it, would have 
been as valueless as the blood of the lamb out of the 
flock, or a he-goat out of the fold. There was but One, 
the current of whose blood could flow, for he was man; 
the value of whose blood was infinite, for he was God. 
To this One, whose blood so freely flowed for you, do 
we invite you this day ; we ask you, as sinners, to come 
and partake of his finished sacrifice, his perfect work, 
to " receive the atonement" by faith into your soul, and 
so receiving it, to stand before God, a sinner still, but 
penitent and believing, cleansed in the blood, and 
clothed in the righteousness, of the Crucified ; a sinner 
saved by grace, freely, O how freely, for his sake alone, 
pardoned, accepted, justified, reconciled to God; the 
handwriting of ordinances that was against you, taken 
away and nailed upon his cross; every repented sin 



LECTURE VI. 446 

blotted out in the blood that flowed from it; all forgiven, 
all forgotten, every trace of enmity for ever done away; 
and love, nothing but love, unmerited love, infinite and 
eternal love, infinite in extent, eternal in duration, pass- 
ing from God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in one 
unbroken stream of tenderness and compassion to your 
soul for ever. May God of his infinite mercy in Christ 
Jesus, grant that there be not one sinner among us, 
whom that stream shall this day pass beside and leave 
uncleansed, unsanctified, unblessed. 



38 



446 



SEVENTH EXPOSITORY LECTURE- 



John xix. 41, 42. 

" Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; atid 
in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid* 
There laid they Jesus." 

From the point with which We concluded our obser- 
vations yesterday, the evangelist thus continues : " The 
Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, that 
the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sab- 
bath day, for that Sabbath day was an high day,T3e* 
sought Pilate that their legs iTiight be broken, and that 
they might be taken away." How closely do men 
cling to the shadow of religion, long after they have 
forsaken the substance* Throughout the whole of the 
closing narrative of our Lord's life, nothing strikes us 
more frequently, or more forcibly, than this* These 
very men, who scrupled not to crucify the Son of God, 
and put him to an open shame, would " not enter the 
judgment-hall lest they be defiled ;" would not put 
Judas's money into the treasury, " because it was the 
price of blood ;" would not suffer the bodies to remain 
on the cross, because they polluted the Sabbath. Well 
did our Lord know these men, when he said, " Ye strain 
at a gnat, and swallow a camel." 



I, 



LECTURE VII. 447 

Beware, brethren, of putting any formal observances 
in the place of spiritual obedience ; whether they be 
church goings, or sacraments, or Bible readings, re- 
member that they do not in themselves constitute godli- 
ness; they are but as means to an end, and that end is 
plainly set before you by the apostle, when he says, 
'' Whose faith follow, considering the end of their con- 
versation : Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, 
and for ever." " That in simplicity and godly sincerity, 
not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, you 
may have your conversation in the world." But false 
and worthless as were the real motives of the Jews in 
this attention to outward observances, while they were 
neglecting the weightier matters of the law, justice and 
truth, the ostensible motive is not to be despised. It 
marked a regard for the Sabbath, when there was so 
much anxiety for the "preparation." How much 
better would the Lord^s day be observed among our- 
selves, if the day which precedes it were in some degree 
made a day of preparation. If the Saturday evening, 
for instance, were devoted to those subjects and em- 
ployments which are to occupy the Sunday. How 
differently, at least among a very large and influential 
portion of society, that evening and that night are spent, 
we need not tell. 

But if the word of God be true which says, " The 
preparation of the heart is from the Lord ;" and if of 
all his blessings, God has said, " Nevertheless, I will be 
inquired of by you ;" we need feel no surprise at ne- 
glected Sabbaths, or unhallowed Sabbaths, or unprofit- 
able Sabbaths, where "preparation" is unthought of, 
and the heartfelt desire of the blessing is unknown. 
Very much in proportion as Sabbath blessings are 



448 LECTURE VII. 

sought in faith, and expected in faith, will God give 
their increase, for here in an especial manner that word 
is constantly fulfilling, " To him who hath, shall more 
be given." 

" Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the 
first, and of the other, which was crucified with him.'' 
So is it, as the wise man said, that "All things," that is, 
all outward things, " come aUke to all." The one^was 
the reprobate blasphemer, the other the happy and ac- 
cepted penitent, he who was that very day to be in Para- 
dise with Jesus; yet here there is no distinction made; 
they brake the legs of both. We might have thought 
that he, to whom in a few short hours such glories and 
such happiness should be revealed, might have been 
spared this last infliction, but God appointed otherwise ; 
perhaps to teach us in our own case, that where sin is 
pardoned, though justice has no claim against us, love 
still holds the rod, and will punish many a pardoned 
child of God, perhaps for sin long since forgiven, as 
David's was, " The Lord hath put away thy sin ; thou 
shalt not die ; nevertheless the child that is born unto 
thee, shall surely die." Perhaps, I say then, for sin long 
since forgiven, but certainly " for our profit," as the 
apostle siays, " that we may be partakers of his holi- 
ness ;" for " when we are judged, we are chastened of 
the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the 
world." 

There is nothing more striking throughout the whole 
of the instructive narrative in which we are engaged, 
and nothing will better repay a close and careful inves- 
tigation, than the different methods in which the several 
prophecies of God were fulfilled. Observe a single 
instance. God had declared many centuries before by 
the type of the Paschal Lamb, that " a bone of Jesus 



LECTURE VII. 449 

should not be broken." See, then, from the manner in 
which it was fulfilled, how^ Uttle need God has of mira- 
culous exertions and supernatural means to fulfil his 
appointments; how often does he bring about his most 
special purposes in the most common manner, and by 
the most ordinary actions of men. Had we read the 
prophecy, we should have been perplexed to imagine 
how God would have ruled and overruled the power of 
his enemies, to keep it from this last forbidden act of 
wanton cruelty ; when the time comes, how naturally 
do we see it fulfilled; no control whatever laid upon the 
actors; their will was perfectly free, to treat Jesus and 
the malefactors alike, or diflferently, as it seemed good 
to them, and yet the purpose of our God standeth sure, 
and is fulfilled by them of their own accord, upon the 
plainest and most rational ground imaginable, <^ When 
they saw that he was dead already, they brake not his 
legs." No ! the object was already gained, life had 
departed, and no bone of him was broken. And yet 
men argue, that if God really thus appointed our down- 
sittings and our u^-risings, our wills would be coerced, 
and we should be mere machines ! Yet in practice, 
we are every moment of our lives verifying God's fore- 
knowledge, and fulfilhng God's appointment, with a will 
equally unbiassed, equally unfettered as the Roman sol- 
diery, and that foreknowledge cannot fail, and that 
appointment must stand, and man or angel cannot alter 
it. This is a great mystery ; wait with patience for a 
little while, until you get within the veil, and all will be 
clear. 

But though they brake not his bones, yet could they 
not refrain from another act of the most gratuitous 
barbarity. " One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his 

38* 



450 LECTURE VII. 

side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water." 
The soldier's intention was sufficiently obvious ; it was 
to make assurance doubly sure, to search for life at the 
well-head, that he thus thrust his spear into the heart of 
Jesus. But while merely gratifying a savage nature, that 
Roman soldier was adding the strongest testimony to 
the Christian's hope, by proviiig beyond all doubt and 
past all controversy that Christ was really dead. The 
most incredulous of beholders, when he saw the heart's 
blood gush forth upon the ground, could doubt no 
longer. 

There is little question, however, that even more than 
this was taught us by that soldier's act of fierce bar- 
barity, or the mingled stream which flowed from the 
heart of the Saviour, would scarcely have been so 
plainly alluded to by the Divine Spirit, when he says, 
" This is he that came by w^ater and blood, even Jesus 
Christ ; not by water only, but by water and blood." 

Each, then, typified a blessing of which we equally 
stand in need, and both freely purchased for us at that 
hour on Calvary : the blood to obtain for us remission, to 
sprinkle the conscience, to quiet the soul ; and the water 
to regenerate, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
Justification, tlien, and sanctification, were in that stream ; 
What God there ordered to flow^ together, let not man 
attempt to separate. Seek both at the same source, and 
from the heart of the same Saviour, and with the pardon 
of every past sin, you shall receive grace and strength 
for future holiness. 

But, brethren, do not deceive yourselves. Are you 
really engaged in doing this ? It is a daily work ; that 
blood needs daily application to the conscience ; no sin, 
however small it may appear, however deeply repented 



LECTURE VII. 451 

of, is pardoned, until it has been carried there to that 
blood of sprinkling. That water needs daily applica- 
tion to your heart, no accession of grace is ever granted 
until it is truly sought in those life-giving streams of the 
Divine Spirit, sanctifying while they cleanse. 

This act, again, fulfilled another prophecy, ** They 
shall look on him whom they pierced." So minutely 
was every outrage registered, that even this insult to the 
dead body of the Saviour was thought worthy of a place 
in prophecy. Again, to teach you that every blow is 
numbered, that in every trial and affliction, not one pain, 
one sorrow, more than God has wisely and mercifully 
appointed, can fall to his people's lot ; that every thrust 
of the spear, every stroke of the rod, is registered on 
high before it is inflicted here, and therefore, that it can- 
not in the slightest degree depend on the will of your 
enemies, but on your Father's word. 

And now as the evening drew on, when the Sabbath 
commenced, it was necessary that the bodies should be 
taken down and committed to the sepulchre. Here, then, 
we find Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, both secret 
followers, and yet as it appears, both earnest followers, 
of Jesus, begging the body of Pilate. 

It is a hopeful sign when men's faith grows in times of 
danger. These men during the lifetime of our Lord 
were secret followers for fear of the Jews, and one at 
least would only come to him at night. Then there was 
comparatively httle danger in the avowal; and now both 
go openly, and as St. Mark declares, " boldly, when his 
dearest friends were scattered." Who shall despise the 
bruised reed, or the smoking flax, or the day of small 
things ? Many a timid follower, if he be sincere, is in 
time strengthened by God's grace for the front rank of 



452 LECTURE VII. 

the battle, and the most fearful onset of the enemy. 
Take courage, therefore if you have entered upon the 
good course, if you have enlisted in the army of Christ ; 
only persevere, and you shall one day be " more than 
conqueror through him that loveth you." 

Having, then, obtained the consent of Pilate, " They 
took the body and wound it in linen clothes, v^ith the 
spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in 
the place where he was crucified there was a garden ; 
and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never 
man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore" — yes, 
brethren, even in the sepulchre, to prove to us the 
blessed truth that the grave shall retain none of his fol- 
lowers, for that it could not retain, even though it held 
himself. It is truly an unspeakable consolation to the 
Christian, to know that his Redeemer passed through the 
valley of the shadow of death ; for let men talk as they 
will, there is no man except he be indeed rooted and built 
up in Christ, who can look forward to that last great 
wrench which separates us from all here below, without 
a pang. And, weakness though it be, it is not death 
alone that gives this feeling ; there is something in the 
prospect of the cold, dark prison-house of the grave, 
from which all nature shrinks. Happy, then, is it for 
the believer to know, that even there his Lord and 
Master has gone before him, that he has sanctified not 
only the believer's death, but the believer's grave, and 
made the corruption of that last bed, sweet by lying 
down there. When, therefore, you are called, as most 
of you must one day be, to follow to that last abode 
the parent of your love, the husband or wife of your 
bosom, the child of your affections, take comfort from 
the thought, I go to place them there, where Jesus lay ; 



LECTURE VII. 453 

in the house appointed for all living, but still in the house 
which my Lord has swept, and garnished, and furnished, 
for himself, and where he will watch over those dear 
remains, until he reunites them to their never-dying spirit, 
and glorifies them with himself. 

When your own turn shall arrive, and you are sum- 
moned to that narrow dwelling, let the same reflection 
cheer and enlighten it for yourself. I go to lie where 
Jesus lay, to sleep where Jesus slept : it was a dark and 
cheerless dwelling till the Lord of heaven left even 
there some rays of light and love. He came to " de- 
liver them who through fear of death were all their life- 
time subject to bondage," and he will deliver me. I 
cannot fear the power of death, when I know that Christ 
has long since drawn his sting, and that the moment I 
depart, my soul shall be with Christ, which is far better 
than all here below. I cannot dread the sleep of the body 
in the graven when I also know that the word of my 
God is pledged, that " all those who sleep in Jesus, shall 
God bring with him." 

Brethren, if you would sleep in Jesus, you must live 
in Jesus ; for so only can you insure the blessing, that 
when your heart and your flesh fail you, he will be the 
strength of your heart, and your portion for ever. 



454 



EIGHTH EXPOSITORY LECTURE. 



St. John xx. 13. 

" And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou 1 She saith 
unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know 
not where they have laid him." 

We resume the expositions in which we are engaged 
at the beginning of the chapter from which the text is 
taken. The Jewish Sabbath which has succeeded the 
day of our Lord's crucifixion, was now over, the day- 
break of the first Christian Sabbath had not yet dawned, 
and while yet in the gray twihght of the morning, 
Cometh Mary Magdalene unto the sepulchre. 

A sense of great benefits received from God will in- 
variably produce great activity for God. Out of Mary 
Magdalene Christ had cast seven devils ; and if she 
were also, as many suppose, the person who loved 
much, because she had been forgiven much, there is still 
less cause for astonishment, that she was now first at the 
sepulchre. She came not, however, alone, but as w^e 
find from the other evangelists, with that company of 
pious women who had so frequently attended our Lord, 
and who, doubtless, all expected to find him still in the 



LECTURE VIII. 455 

grave, and had brought the ointments for his embalming. 
There was much of love, mingled with much of igno- 
rance, in their errand. There was love in that they 
came to honour him, whom all the rest of the world had 
deserted ; there was ignorance, in that they thought to 
find him in the sepulchre, who had so often and so plainly 
told them, that the grave could not retain him. 

The great difficulty which occurred to the minds of 
the women, and which formed their conversation by 
the way^ was, as we learn from St* Mark, '' Who shall 
roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre," 
for it was very large : doubtless they were convinced, 
that if this were overcome, all would be well, and they 
should find their Lord. They were equally mistaken 
in both these expectations. The stone was no impedi- 
ment, for it was already removed, and yet they did not 
find the Saviour. How often in passing through life, 
do the same results occur. We view from a distance 
difficulties which w^e never expect to overcome, some 
event that will be too much for our fortitude, some trial 
that will be too great for our faith ; yet as the day of 
trouble approaches, the difficulty has subsided, or the 
providence of God has made it easy, or all that we 
feared to do is done for us, and the stone which the 
utmost eflforts of our strength could not have stirred, 
some unseen hand has rolled away. 

Yet even here the parallel does not finish between 
these women and ourselves; we meet it again in the 
disappointment which often follows the removal of our 
difficulties ; the change of circumstances brings with it 
too frequently only a change of sorrows, or a change 
of temptations. Thus, for instance : Are you withheld 



456 LECTURE VIII. 

by outward situation from many of the privileges of 
the gospel, perhaps obliged to lead a life as regards 
spiritual thiugs of perpetual privation or restraint? and 
is the constant feeling of your mind, Were this but 
different, would it please God to release me from this 
thraldom ; could my present occupation be altered, my 
present relationships changed, then, indeed, I should 
enjoy so much more of spiritual communion, then I 
could act so much more easily according to the light 
which God has given me, that I might indeed be said 
to have found the Saviour, which under present circum- 
stances I shall never do? Brethren, such feehngs as 
these are of far more frequent occurrence than you 
imagine. It would be painful to say, how often they 
are to be met with, and how often they end only in dis- 
appointment. The difficulty has been removed, but the 
promised benefit has never been i^-ealized. The stone is 
rolled away, but the Saviour is not found. 

There can, indeed, be little doubt, that thje expecta- 
tion of great spiritual benefit from any change of out- 
ward circumstances is generally a mere delusion of 
our spiritual enemy, to induce us to procrastinate re- 
pentance, to postpone the time for drawing nearer to 
God; that so far from present difficulties, or present 
impediments, really forming hindrances, they are just 
those very things which God sees we have most need 
of for the spiritual growth and benefit of our .souls. In 
this we are fully borne out by the experience to which 
I have alluded, for oftentimes, the persons whom we 
have seen watchful, prayerful, humble Christians, while 
surrounded by difficulties, have become froward, self- 
righteous, and even careless in their walk and conver- 



LECTURE VIII. 457 

sation, when all outward difficulties have vanished. It 
is within only that all desirable change must be effected: 
as is the heart so is the life, and so is the man. 

Immediately upon the disappointment of Mary Mag- 
dalene, we read, "Then she runneth, and cometh to 
Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus 
loved, and saith unto them. They have taken away the 
Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they 
have laid him." We might almost have imagined, 
from the lamentation of Mary, that the loss of the 
Saviour's body was a greater trial than even the cruci- 
fixion itself. Her lamentation seems to infer, it was 
true that Jesus was dead, but still while even the body 
remained, there was some opportunity to testify grati- 
tude and love, but now that this is taken, hope itself 
seems utterly extinguished. How true it is, that every 
trial of the Christian flows from unbelief. Unbelief, 
even though joined with great affection, as it here un- 
questionably was, will often mistake God's dealings so 
far as not only to paint supposed trials in the darkest 
colours, but to convert mercies themselves into afflic- 
tions. *^ Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, 
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith 
unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the 
sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him." 
Immediately upon receiving her report, ihey hastened 
to the sepulchre, and finding it to be as she had assured 
them, untenanted by him for whom they searched, 
"They went away again," says the evangelist, " unto 
their own home." 

We will not say that they were speedily satisfied, 
that a little more time, and a little more faith, and a little 

39 



458 LECTURE VIII. 

more patience, would have brought a full reward ; but 
this we may say, that she who waited the longest 
received the richest recompense. God seldom disap- 
points a waiting servant. David knew this when he 
said, " I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait for him ; 
yea, my soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that 
watch for the morning ; I say, more than they that 
watch for the morning." And as he elsewhere adds, 
"None that wait on thee shall be ashamed." "But 
Mary," says the evangehst, " stood without at the 
sepulchre, weeping; and as she wept, she stooped down, 
and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in 
white, sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the 
feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say 
unto her, Woman, why weepest thou ? She saith unto 
them. Because they have taken away my Lord, and I 
know not where they have laid him." What a re- 
markable evidence of the intensity of Mary's grief is 
afforded by the fact, that even a vision of angels does 
not interrupt it. She is so completely absorbed by this 
one feeling, that there is no surprise, no symptom of 
astonishment ; she answers the angelic speaker as if she 
had conversed with angels all her life. 

" And when she had thus said, she turned herself 
back," that is, from looking into the sepulchre, " and 
saw Jesus standing and knew not," probably because 
her eyes were blinded by her tears, " that it was Jesus. 
Jesus saith unto her. Woman, why weepest thou? Whom 
seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, 
saith unto him. Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell 
me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him 
away." Observe ! no mention of the name of Christ ; 
her own heart is too full to imagine that any reference 



LECTURE VIII. 459 

more distinct than this can be needed, "If thou hast 
borne him hence." " Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She 
turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni ; which is 
to say, Master." There was something in the accents 
of that well-known voice when it pronounced her name, 
which ' left no possibility to doubt the speaker. How 
touching and beautiful a comment upon our Lord's own 
words, "My sheep hear my voice;" they know the 
voice of their Shepherd, when they hear it in his word 
and in his providences, in his blessings and in his chas- 
tenings, as distinctly and as immediately as Mary Mag- 
dalene knew who was speaking to her at that moment 
in the garden of the sepulchre. This is a high mystery, 
but I speak as concerning Christ and his Church: for is 
it not said that he shall manifest himself to them as he 
does not unto the world ; and does not experience fully 
justify it, when they hear a voice which the world can- 
not hear, and see a hand which the world cannot see. 

Upon Mary saying " Master," she had probably 
thrown herself at his feet, for our Lord immediately 
adds, " Touch me not ; for I am not yet ascended to 
my Father ; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, 
I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my 
God and your God." 

How blessed, how soul-encouraging a message for 
the poor, trembling disciples. They perhaps would 
have felt, the moment they were satisfied of the resur- 
rection of Christ, Now all communion of feeling between 
us will be for ever at an end ; what can he who stands 
at the right hand of God feel in common with us, poor 
w^orms of earth ? To tell them, therefore, merely that 
he was risen, would have brought comparatively but 



460 LECTURE VIIL 

• 

little comfort to their souls. How considerate, then, in 
our risen Lord, that this should be the message in which 
the great and glorious event of the resurrection should 
be announced to them. The God to whom I go is your 
God, the Father to whom I now return is your Father, 
your reconciled Father in me. What assurance could 
the weakest disciple, what could the fallen and penitent 
Peter himself desire, that was not conveyed to him in 
these words ? 

Derive much comfort, then, my Christian brethren, 
from this most blessed announcement: you worship, and 
serve, and love a risen Saviour. Death could not hold 
him, the grave could not confine him, Satan could not 
vanquish him; over all these he triumphed, and he 
triumphed gloriously, going down into their own do- 
minions, and in the grave, the very stronghold of their 
citadel, meeting death face to face, and there for ever 
vanquishing him, and having slain the tyrant, breaking 
in pieces the fetters wherewith he had bound all the 
generations of men as hopeless captives. But in what 
manner are you individually interested in the triumphs 
of the Saviour? It is not merely that as Christ died 
for your sins, so he rose again for your justification ; it 
is not merely that as he went down as your surety into 
the grave, after paying the great debt to man, so the 
very fact that he came up again, the very freedom of 
the surety, proves that all that mighty debt was can- 
celled, that infinite justice itself has now^ no demands 
against his people. But you must feel your own indi- 
vidual share in these great benefits, and this can only be 
done by an individual appropriation of those most com- 
fortable words, " I go to my Father, and your Father ; 



LECTURE VIII. 461 

and to my God, and your God." Have you reason 
to believe that these relationships hold good as regards 
yourself? By nature you are the children of vi^rath, 
even as others ; have you by grace been made the 
children of God ? Has God now become your Father ? 
As St. Peter asks, Have you '^ been begotten again unto 
a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead, to an inheritance uncorruptible, and undefiled, 
and that fadeth not avi^ay, reserved in heaven for you?" 
If you have good reason to believe that you have, then 
what peace, what joy, are yours. The humblest, 
feeblest believer among ourselves, may ask in the tri- 
umphant language of an apostle, "O death, where is 
thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory V All that 
Christ on this day did, he did for me; for me he died, 
for me he descended to the grave, for me he rose again. 
Not one covenanted mercy then purchased but was 
bought for me, not one blessing by this act secured for 
the most beloved of his apostles which is not secured 
to me, although the chief of sinners, the most worthless 
of his people. Well, therefore, may you this day unite 
in that most affecting song of the Church militant, which 
shall never be equalled but by the new song of the 
Church triumphant, "Christ our passover is sacrificed 
for us, therefore let us keep the feast; Christ being 
raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no 
more dominion over him ; Christ is risen from the dead, 
and become the first-fruits of them that slept." There- 
fore may we, his people, sleep in peace, when we com- 
mit our bodies to the ground, " earth to earth, ashes to 
ashes, dust to dust," " in sure and certain hope of the 
resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus 



462 LECTURE VIII. 

Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be 
made like unto his glorious body, according to the 
mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things 
unto himself."* 

* Burial service. 



THE END. 



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